Poetry Highlights of the Year, 2011

It's that time of year again:

My Favourite Poetry Books published in 2011

The New North, anthology of contemporary poetry from Northern Ireland
- ed. Chris Agee (Salt);
Lost at Sea - Jean Atkin (Roncadora Press)- a beautiful artist's book designed by
Hugh Bryden;
Sidereal - Rachel Boast (Picador);
Black Cat Bone - John Burnside (Cape);
Aibisidh - Angus Peter Campbell (Polygon);
Working the Hill - Jim Carruth (Mariscat Press);
The Bees - Carol Ann Duffy (Picador);
Red House - Sasha Dugdale (Oxford Poets/Carcanet);
Profit and Loss - Leontia Flynn (Cape);
Night - David Harsent (Faber);
A Choosing - Selected Poems - Liz Lochhead (Polygon);

Favourite Pamphlets, published in 2011:

Apocrypha - A.B. Jackson (Donut Press) -PBS pamphlet choice.
A Shewing Stone - Sean Martin (Mutus Liber)- Winner of the Wigtown Prize, 2011;
Garden of Bedsteads - Jane McKie (Mariscat Press)

Favourite Poetry Books published prior to 2011:

An Anthology of Contemporary Russian Women Poets eds V. Polukhina and D. Weissbort (Carcanet, 2005);
A Nest on the Waves - David Wheatley (Gallery Books, 2010);
On the flyleaf - Ken Cockburn (Luath Press, 2007)

Favourite pamphlets published prior to 2011:

The Thief - Gill Andrews (HappenStance, 2010);
Annie Katchinska: Faber New Poets 6, (FF 2010).

and catching up: Lorca, Cavafy, Ovid, Catullus, Sappho in various translations; Sharon Olds.

Poetry Reading Highlights of 2011:

Peggy Hughes singing Burns' A Man's a Man for a' that', part of the Burns Flash
Mob outside St Giles' Cathedral, Edb, Jan. (View on You-tube);

Ciaran Carson, Douglas Dunne, Paul Farley, Selima Hill, Yang Lian, Fiona Sampson,
Lidija Simkute, Adnan al-Sayegh at StAnza, Scotland's Poetry Festival,
St. Andrews, March;

Robin Cairns and Claudia Daventry at the Poetry Slam on last night of StAnza, March;

August Kleinzahler in St Mary's Hall, St. Andrew's, in May;

Kay Ryan at the Story-telling Centre (The Netherbow), Edinburgh, in Nov.

Don Paterson reading poem inspired by and surrounded by Alison Watt's paintings
in the Ingleby Art Gallery, Edinburgh, Dec.