A message from Mandy Haggith about the planned 'Scottish Highlands and Islands Poetry Society.-if you are interested in attending the Teams meeting Mandy refers to on Monday 30th January at 5pm, please email highlandlit.com@gmail.com and we will send you the link. Here's what Mandy says! For ages some poets have been thinking about setting up a ‘Scottish Highlands and Islands Poetry Society’ (SHIPS) and we’re thinking that 2023 is the year to do it. There are so many poets and poetry lovers in this part of the world and very little in the way of support or networking and events, publication and promotion etc of poetry, compared to places like the central belt. About fifteen years ago there was an attempt to set up a Highlands branch (stanza) of the Poetry Society but we all agreed we were all too geographically distributed for it to work in person and most people weren’t online then. But they are now, so an online group could work. So let’s begin with four sessions, at 5pm on the last Monday of the month from now until spring, for an hour, on Teams, to bounce ideas around about what might work and what it should do, how it should run, share some poems etc. A poetry society could happen under the aegis of UHI if that would be helpful or independently if that would be better. We want Gaelic and Scots to take centre stage. If you’re interested in being involved, get in touch with Mandy Haggith (Mandy.Haggith.ic@uhi.ac.uk) or come along to the meeting or both! Any ideas very gratefully received!
