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Into Ettrick

In April 2014, Andrew Mackenzie and the poet Ken Cockburn spent a day exploring the Ettrick Valley - a remote area in the Scottish Borders rich in literary and artistic associations through the writer James Hogg, and the artist William Johnstone.

This is the resulting work »

Ken Cockburn is a poet and translator based in Edinburgh. Recent publications include Ink , with artists ~in the fields (2011), and Snapdragon, translations of poems by Arne Rautenberg (2012). The Road North, a long poem written with Alec Finlay which transposes Basho's Oku-no-hosomichi (Back Roads to Far Towns) from 17th century Japan to contemporary Scotland, is published in autumn 2014. For more information see: http://kencockburn.wordpress.com/

James Hogg (1770-1835) was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist, born in Ettrick in the Scottish Borders, and know as The Ettrick Shepherd. He is best known today for his novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

William Johnstone OBE (1897-1981) was an influential Scottish modernist artist, teacher and writer, and was the Principal of Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1947-1960. He was born in the Scottish Borders and studied at Edinburgh College of Art, where he met the poet Hugh MacDiarmid; together they formed the concept of the Scottish Renaissance. Following retirement from teaching in London, he worked for a time as an artist and a farmer at Potburn in Ettrick.

Thomas Boston (1676-1732) was a Scottish church leader, theologian and philosopher. He lived and worked at Ettrick from 1707.

Read the press release.




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