Badenoch literary event succeeds in ‘getting people thinking and writing’

At the final event of this year’s Kingussie Festival of Words, Badenoch poetry competition judge Hugh McMillan announced the winners for this year’s prizes.

Poems had been invited this year on the theme of Kith and Kin.

Said Hugh: “I was impressed not just by the number of entries but also by how personal, thoughtful and well-written they were; the short-listed entries in particular show tenderness, atmosphere and musicality while dealing with some hard-hitting issues.

“It was especially nice to have several entries in Scots, one of Europe’s most beautiful languages. Choosing winners was no easy task.”

In the young person’s category - which attracted over 80 entries from Kingussie High School students - the winner was Torrin Haworth with his poem In the Moonlight.

Hugh said: “This is a delightful life-affirming poem about friendship, full of surprises and humour. As the poet says, they will ‘flow into the future laughing and gasping’ and the future is a better place with poets of this freshness, vitality and energy.”

Second place went to Jemima Benbow with her poem “They used to eat playdough”.

Two other poems were also commended: Meg by Malin Hayes, and Rohin by Maisie Wallace.

For the adult category, the winning poem was My Sisters in Feathers and Flowers by Aviemore poet Karen Hodgson Pryce.

Hugh said it was “a tender and beautifully imagined evocation, well-structured with a beautiful start and conclusion. The poet uses language beautifully and the poem sings throughout.”

Three other poems were also commended: Death’s Door by Stephen Watt from Dumbarton, and I am here in charge of the meal by Finola Scott from Kirkintilloch, and Tae Shape an Unco Sang by David Bleiman from Edinburgh.

All the shortlisted poets were invited to attend the event in The Iona Gallery in Kingussie and read their poems, along with others taking part in the Festival of Words.

“In The Moonlight”

By Torrin Haworth

A friend is like a star that twinkles and glows,

Nevio however does not do either.

Although his hair looks great in grim weather

Nevio’s hair is like a troll in the sunlight it gets uglier and uglier.

Nevio’s hair I always pull so he looks like a fool at school.

Now onto Jared who loves crisps so much, he fell off a baby chair, and gave his father a

glare.

and who knew he’d be balder than Xavier!

his head shines in the sun but it’s not that fun to look at.

His head is blinding, reminding Nevio to slap his head.

But we will always be friends and when the moonlight shows we will flow to the future

laughing and gasping, as one big trio. We will never stop we will dance late into the

moonlight and when the morning comes, we will have some rum and then start the day over

again like we have never laughed before.

The festival ran in Kingussie until Saturday with the aim of getting people listening, reading and thinking about writing.

There were free events in both Kingussie schools. Rachel Avery is well known locally for her roots and shorts work. She had senior primary school pupils writing short poems about a favourite relative or friend, and designing a matching postcard.

The cards were then displayed at the Iona Gallery for the rest of the festival. At Kingussie High School, renowned and humorous Dumfriesshire poet Hugh McMillan made a change for English lessons and a

good way to start next year’s work with a workshop on writing poetry.

Eleven41 Gallery hosted a storytelling talk with Edinburgh author and storyteller Donald Smith who has been in the thick of cultural developments in Scotland for almost 50 years.

He talked about the role storytelling has in Scottish culture, and brought to life some of the Ossian stories collected by James Macpherson.

There were book and poetry events in Caberfeidh Horizons bookshop and the Iona Gallery with Hugh McMillan, Donald S. Murray, Finola Scott and Helen Graham which were the listening parts of the festival.

Then on Saturday there was an all day writing workshop for people to get on with doing.

The festival ended with The Last Word. This open mic. event compered by Hugh McMillan entertained a full Iona Gallery with poetry and stories, from Badenoch Poetry Competition poets, festival event writers and workshop participants, and others who decided to give it a go.

Festival of Words co-founders Claire Candy, Andrew Wilson and Nick Walker even took a turn - with Claire’s poetry, Andrew telling a story about how Kingussie got its name, and Nick reciting a poem created by a meccano poetry generating machine on display for the festival courtesy of Chris Shute.

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