Walking Between Worlds
Brian Whittingham's latest book of poems published by Red Squirrel Press. This is the world as Whittingham sees it. These are poems for fellow saunterers, for those who enjoy strolling through their own world observing and taking in all around them, just as the poet does.
As Janet Paisley writes of him: "Whittingham paints people withis pen. Characters spring alive and whole from poems that reveal lives and personalities in a few lines of precise observation and telling detail."ISBN: 978 1 910437 50 6 [70pps]
£10 from Red Squirrel Press
People Who Work Standing Up
This is a: 'HOW TO WORKSHOP LABOUR WRITING' tutorial exploring a variety of techniques and methods of researching and writing about the working lives of ourselves and those round about us.
It's packed with images, discussion prompts, writing prompts and suggested reads that will result in individuals, tutors and/or groups to engage in the world of labour writing and a production of some powerful writing.
32 pages.
£3.12 from Amazon - Kindle Edition.
Clocking In Clocking Out: Poems and Photographs on the Subject of Work
This is a collection of observational poems centred around all aspects of working life. We all define ourselves to some extent by our job, or lack of a job, and the author explores the many different ways in which this definition manifests itself. From hairdressers to hangmen, and boxers to builders, the universal experience of work is approached from every angle, so that each reader will find something different to relate to.
ISBN (13) 3 9781908373175
128 pps Price
£8.99 From: Luath Press
Bunnets n Bowlers – a Clydeside Odyssey
Every ship has a story, and so does every shipbuilder, whether they are bowler hats, the foremen whose job it was to make sure deadlines were met, or bunnets, the skilled artisans that did the graft.
Meet the characters of The Black Squad: Sam Abbott, the knicker knocker from Duntocher; Wild Bill Hickok, the card shark; Irish Pat, the burner who likes his bevvy too much, and many more. They’ve spent their lives together in Brown’s shipyard sharing in the hilarity and tragedy of their work.
Bunnets n Bowlers follows this Clydeside odyssey, familiar to so many, from smart-arsed apprentice to skilled artisan and celebrates the humour and camaraderie of an ailing profession.
ISBN: 1 906307 94 6 From: Luath Press
Septimus Pitt and the Grumbloids
Enter the mysterious world of Septimus Pitt and The Grumbleoids, where colourful characters spring to life in playfully peculiar poems. Meet the new teacher with a bizarre dress sense, and Mr Nobody, an unhappy spook who just wants to join the class. Find out the secrets of the retired puppeteer, and be scared – very scared – of the ghost of an ancient librarian and his faithful cat.
ISBN: (10): 1 905222 81 5
ISBN (13): 978 1 905222 81 5
The paper used in this book is recyclable. It is made from low chlorine pulps produced in a low energy, low emission manner from renewable forests.
From: Luath PressBrian Whittingham has a brilliant track record of working with schools. His work for Glasgow Museums brought exhibitions alive and drew pupils into the collections in new and exciting ways...The poetry helped children express their thoughts and emotions in ways that those of us who have watched Brian at work couldn’t begin to imagine... This collection will inspire, delight and inform all who dip into it.
ANNE WALLACE
Education Officer, Glasgow MuseumsA wonderful anthology of poems which assaults the senses and captures the heart. The subject matter, the humour and the evocation of time and place would appeal to even the most apathetic reader; yet there is more than enough to simulate the more capable. I would highly recommend this collection to my colleagues as a classroom resource.
CLAIRE CHISOM
Principal Teacher of English, St Andrew’s High School, Clydebank
Drink the Green Fairy (2005)
In this, his fourth poetry collection, Brian Whittingham walks the streets of Glasgow, dips into people’s lives and delves into the world of the Impressionist painters. Like looking through a family album, the poems are quick snapshots, focusing on the particular of the ordinary and yet widening the gaze to the universal in life. Colour is not just splashed across the canvases of the painter’s lives he explores, but finds its way into the lives of all those he encounters. With his own bold brush strokes Whittingham mixes the territory of high-art and city-streets, making both as significant in the make up of daily lives.
ISBN: 1 84282 045 1
Binding: Paperback
Price £8.99
From: Luath Press"The last time I drank the Green Fairy was on my stag night, twenty-eight years ago. I ended up upside-down, having been deposited in a rubbish bin with my legs sticking up in the air in Glasgow’s Queen Street Station."
BRIAN WHITTINGHAM
'A cunning mix of family memories, traumas of hospital wards, and probing of the relations between art and life …a warm and attractive collection, with a characteristic blend of sympathetic observation and sharp social comment'.
EDWIN MORGAN
"Brian Whittingham's ship has been launched. It should take Glasgow to the world. For here is a collection which packages Glasgow (and Paris flung in for good measure) using microcosmic insights and incidences to create, through an integrity of humanity, the universality most writers would sell their soul for. Brian Whittingham hasn't sold his soul. That's his trick - he's kept it. He's stuck to his own path over the years and produced the finest collection of poetry I've read in years."
DES DILLON
Old Man from Brooklyn and the Charing Cross Carpet (2000)
This collection of poems from Brian Whittingham swings between his home city and the United States, reflecting as ever his eye for the oddball, his ear for the funny or poignant remark, his deadpan humour, his enjoyment of the simple pleasures of family life – his sheer interest in people and what they say and do.
ISBN 0 946588 23 6
Binding: Saddle stitched (+ dust cover)
Price: £5.00
From: Maricat PressIf Brian Whittingham were a film director, he’d be winning Oscars!
DES DILLON
Swiss Watches & the Ballroom Dancer (1996)
ISBN: 1 873899 01 7
Binding: Paperback
Price £6.99
From: Taranis Books"Whittingham has what might be called an ear for thought, as if it were catching the thoughts and feelings in his environment and giving them expression in all their humour and paradox while emerging out of stark realism."
TESSA RANSFORD
Lines ReviewWhittingham's poems are direct, perceptive and very funny."
DILYS ROSE
Fiction writer and poet"Versatile and exhilarating to read. Whittingham is definitely a poet to watch."
MARIO RELICH
Lines Review
Ergonomic Workstations & Spinning Tea Cans (1992)
This collection maps the sojourn of the naive school-leaver to time-served tradesman to a desk job. The personal consequences and incongruities of this journey are explored, culminating in the occupational schizophrenia of the outstanding title poem.
ISBN: 1 873899 25 4
Binding: Paperback
Price £4.99
From: Taranis Books"the poems have the tang of Tom Leonard's Glasgow both in language and in directness. They are anecdotal, fresh, unpretentiuos and fast moving. Whittingham has an excellent ear for language and a gift for timimg that would do credit to a top-flight stand-up comic."
ROBIN BELL
Books in Scotland"Brian Whittingham is a gentle sort of chap in conversation. Read some of his poetry and someone else emerges, a man of pithy comment and accurate observattion."
LESLEY HARDIE
Evening Times
Industrial Deafness (1990)
A dozen poems reflecting some of Brian Whittingham's experiences as an apprentice in the tough world of building ships on the Clyde.
ISBN: 0 9515394 1 8 (out of print)
Binding: Saddle stitched
Price: £1.00
From: Crazy Day Press"Almost a rite of passage, these poems are funny, poignant and accurately describe a working culture easily indentifiable by all who spent any time in it."
JOE MURRAY
West Coast Magazine