Sailmaker Plus

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But Spence is not solely inspired by the minutiae of daily life. On meeting Alison Watt, a painter, he was moved to write a meditative response to a painting she was commissioned to create for Old St Paul’s church in Jeffrey Street, Edinburgh. The work, Fold, is a huge four-part painting of draped fabric. Alan Spence’s response to it, alongside photographs of its creation and an interesting introduction, were featured in a book created to celebrate the work. In these poems, Spence investigates ideas of ‘pure being’, salvation and contemplative faith: He is Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen and, with his wife, runs the Sri Chinmoy Meditation Centre. He has been the Artistic Director of the Word Festival since 1999. His published plays are Sailmaker (1983), Space Invaders (1983), Changed Days (1991), and The 3 Estaites (2002).

In 1990, Alan Spence published his first novel, The Magic Flute, and this has been followed by two further novels: Way to Go (1998), and The Pure Land (2006), based on the life of Thomas Glover. In 2022, Edinburgh Come All Ye, a collection of poetry, was published by Scotland Street Press. [4] By accessing meditative thought and insight through everyday tasks, Spence reveals a new world in the mundane.

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Both plays are Scottish National 5 texts. This is an ideal opportunity for school pupils to see the texts they study come alive on the stage. In addition, there are workshops for school pupils arranged to take place around the performances, hosted by the directors of the plays and when possible some cast members. Whilst these performances present an excellent opportunity for school students who study the plays, the plays are of course hugely enjoyable for adult audiences and the shows are by no means intended exclusively for schools. At the end of Act One, Alec shoves the yacht in the Glory Hole. Why is this important? What does it tell Alan Spence is a difficult writer to characterise. Not only has he written across genres and covered many themes, his writing often falls somewhere between literature and philosophy. However, everything he writes is shot through with ideas of Zen and contemplative meditation. Spence began practicing contemplative meditation in his twenties. Coupled with long-distance running, these practices form the core of his interests and influence every facet of his writings.

He first came across haiku at school, when his head was full of Dylan Thomas’s poetry, but by the next year he was reading books about Zen and ‘was making the connection between haiku and a state of mind, a state of being – clear-eyed seeing into “the life of things”’ ( Atoms of Delight). Spence writes in a variety of poetic forms borrowed from Eastern tradition, including haiku and tanka.The interpolation of Glaswegian dialect amid lofty Zen phrases produces an insightful book which lingers with the reader long after they have put it down. It is a book which, according to John Hudson, in Markings 15, ‘pops up just when you are about to pop out’ placing you ‘re-signed, pointed in the right direction, the here and now’.