Goat Fell By Moonlight: A Poet Returns

It must be August. Suddenly Arran is even fuller than usual with people, residents and visitors alike, doing interesting things and the island’s creative vibe very much to the fore.

For anyone into writing, whether as a reader or a practitioner, the absolute highlight this year has to be the visit by David Constantine over the last weekend of August. A multi-award winning poet, translator, novelist and short story writer, his visit to take part in this year’s McLellan Festival is a major coup for the organisers.

This won’t be David’s first time on Arran although he admits his last visit was ‘decades ago’. He recalls how he ‘climbed Goat Fell in an icy moonlight’. It is an image that has clearly stayed with him and re-visiting Arran’s hills (hopefully in sunshine this time) will certainly be on his agenda in any spare time there may be in what will be a busy schedule spread over five days.

Born in Salford on the west side of Manchester, David Constantine worked for thirty years as a university teacher of German language and literature. As well as ten collections of poems (the most recent, ‘Elder’ in 2014), he has written two novels (the second, ‘The Life Writer’ in 2015) and four volumes of short stories (‘Tea at the Midland and Other Stories’ won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the world’s richest prize for short fiction). earlier this year he attracted headlines when Charlotte Rampling won an Oscar nomination for her performance in the film ‘45 Years’ based on his story ‘Another Country’. You can see the film, also starring Tom Courtenay, at a special showing in Corrie Hall on Monday 29th August introduced by David.

Another side of Constantine’s career has been as an editor and translator specialising in Hõlderlin, Goethe, Kleist and Brecht. With his wife Helen he edited the journal ‘Modern Poetry in Translation’ for many years and he and Helen will lead a panel discussion with four local professional translators at Brodick Library on the afternoon of Sunday 28th August.

David’s immediate reason for returning to Arran is to present the £1000 prize for this year’s McLellan Poetry Competition. An increasingly international affair, this year’s competition attracted entries from twenty different countries across all five continents. The evening which will feature David reading from his own work, is at Brodick’s Little Rock Café, a venue that will be transformed for the night with music from harp and whistle duo Arran Dawn, and a pop-up book shop. Reserve a ticket online or at the Brodick Book and Card. And there are still a few places left for the writing workshop at Corrie Hall on Saturday the 27th.