Poetry of People, Legend, & Lore
Birnam Studio & Gallery, Station Road, Birnam
Friday 25th October 19:30 – 21:00
Morag Anderson invites you to an evening of poetry in Birnam’s new art café. Morag is Birnam Book Festival’s Poet-in-Residence, the Makar for the Federation of Writers (Scotland) in 2023. Award-winning poets Julie McNeill and Donna Matthew join Morag for what’s sure to be a memorable evening.
Tickets: £7
Email: fwsmakar2023@gmail.com
Coffee, tea, wine and soft drinks available.
Rare Macbeth History on Display
Birnam Arts, upstairs
Saturday 26th October 10.00 – 17.00
Sunday 27th October 11:00 – 17:00
Dunkeld Community Archive houses many treasures, now including a digitised excerpt of Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of Scotland. Printed in 1577, this was the source for many of Shakespeare’s plots. Innerpeffray Library has generously allowed the Macbeth section of this rare volume to be digitised for display at the Birnam Book Festival. Come and view what inspired Shakespeare’s fascinating (if erroneous) account of Macbeth, including an illustration of the three ‘weird sisters’. An opportunity not to be missed!
Free event
Birnam Library’s Future
Birnam Arts, downstairs
Saturday 26th October 10.00 – 17.00
Sunday 27th October 11:00 – 17:00
Drop by for a chat and a visit to the Birnam Institute Library and Reading Room, now 141 years old. Andrew Carnegie said the access he’d had to libraries as a young man was crucial to his success. So he used his wealth to create thousands of free libraries worldwide. What does the future hold for our own valued community library here in Birnam?
Books & Bubbles
Champagne & sparkling wine tasting
Redwood Wines, 12 Bridge Street, Dunkeld
Sunday 27th October 16:00
Hosts Roseanna and Morgwn will guide you through a tasting of delectable bubbles from across the globe, accompanied by sharing platters of cheese and charcuterie. The sharing table will be stacked with vintage books available to purchase. Proceeds from book sales will benefit The Royal School of Dunkeld and The Scottish Book Trust.
Tickets: £45 – Places are limited, book early!
Email: contact@redwoodwines.co.uk
Phone: 01350 729228
Corbenic Poetry Path
Drumour Lodge, Trochry, near Dunkeld
Visit the Corbenic Poetry Path as part of your Birnam Book Festival experience. Meander across open hillside and moorland, and follow ancient native woodlands and riverbanks. Along your way, you’ll find quiet corners and magical places where the work of some of Scotland’s best living poets is showcased against Highland Perthshire’s stunning landscapes.
Find out more at http://www.corbeniccamphill.co.uk/poetry-path
or on Facebook.
The Poetry Path is always open, always free!
Chance Operations Workshop
with Martine Foltier Pugh
Birnam Arts
Saturday 9th November, 11.00 – 13.00
A Birnam Book Festival Fringe Event, Chance Operations with Martine Foltier Pugh will appeal to aspiring and practising writers and artists alike. In the course of the workshop, you will learn how to pick words randomly from newspapers and books and how to present your findings. You will take home your own blackout poems that are visually striking works of art in themselves and some fresh ideas to develop further.
Words inspire Martine, in a playful way. ‘Chance Operations’ is called after Dada and the Surrealists who were fascinated by Freud’s study of dreams and the subconscious. They experimented with simple techniques to generate text randomly and independently of the author’s control and rational thinking. ‘Letting go’ feels liberating when everything else we do is about making hard choices. The process becomes meditative and brings about strangely evocative and uncanny juxtapositions, little poetic nuggets even, surprising and otherworldly.
Tickets: £30
Download Chance Operations Lesson Plan
