A Gallimaufry of Poetry, Speech and Song

Join us for a gala evening of music, speech and poetry to celebrate the publication of William Soutar: Collected Works (Published Poetry) and the 127th anniversary of Soutar’s birth. The evening will be dedicated to the memory of Jim Carruthers, much missed treasurer of the Friends of William Soutar Society.

Featured musical artists will include Roberto Cassani, Roy Henderson & Andrew Bachell, Jim Malcolm, Irene McFarlane, Plaidsong, Debra Salem & Pete Honeyman, Jess Smith, Alan Sutherland and Mairi Sutherland.

Paul S Philippou, editor-in-chief, Kirsteen McCue and Philippa Osmond-Williams, editors, of William Soutar: Collected Works (Published Poetry) will give a talk about Soutar and the significance of these first two volumes in what will be a landmark enterprise in Scottish letters. Soutar’s poems will be read by Joy Hendry and members of the Friends of William Soutar Society.

William Soutar: Collected Works (Published Poetry) reintroduces one of Scotland’s most significant twentieth-century poets, a champion of Scots, pacifist visionary and forerunner of ecopoetics whose achievement has long been overlooked. This two-volume edition of his published poetry showcases his striking lyric gift in poems of love and community, war and mortality. Soutar was bedbound by illness for the last fourteen years of his life. His work is a testament to his creativity and resilience in adversity.

The evening opens a mini Soutar festival organised by Tippermuir Books and the Friends of William Soutar Society in collaboration with Culture Perth and Kinross.