By Lesley Benzie
Poets and musicians will gather at the Aberdeenshire homeplace of one of Scotland’s best-loved writers in August to celebrate his enduring influence.
They will share the stage at the Grassic Gibbon Centre in Arbuthnott on Saturday August 15 to mark the 125th anniversary of the birth of James Leslie Mitchell – aka Lewis Grassic Gibbon – author of Sunset Song, which is widely regarded as the greatest Scottish novel of the 20th century.
The free event, which starts at 7pm (doors open 6.30pm), will feature a range of performers who span the generations. The line-up will include teenage all-girl band Berlin 87, 78-year-old Doric maestro Alistair Lawrie, award-winning Scots poet Lesley Benzie, rock/punk performer Len Helsing– lead singer of The Thanes – poets Karen Macfarlane, Marka Rifat, Andrew Urquhart, Neil Young, Gaelic singer Jon Ball, singer/songwriter David Potter and Gloria Potter.
It has been organised by The Wee Gaitherin poetry festival – Stonehaven’s annual poetry festival – and Friends of Grassic Gibbon along with Arbuthnott Community Association.
Born in 1901, and living his formative early years in Arbuthnott, James Leslie Mitchell is best known for the novel Sunset Song, written under his pen-name of Lewis Grassic Gibbon.
The book, which formed part of a trilogy of novels set in Northeast Scotland called A Scots Quair, has been adapted into a celebrated TV serial and a film. Regarded as one of the key works of Scottish literature of the early 20th century, Sunset Song helped to forge a new modern form of Scottish prose writing, whilst chronicling an agrarian lifestyle that was already vanishing by the time of the book’s publication in 1932.
It also brought into being one of the most memorable female figures in Scottish literature in the central character of Chris Guthrie. Uniquely for the time, Mitchell drove the narrative through Chris’s eyes as she navigated the contradictions of a deep love of the land while trying to escape the bonds of traditional values to live more independently.
Lesley Benzie, of the Wee Gaitherin poetry festival, said: “Coming from the Northeast ‘Sunset Song’ was a beacon for my cultural and emotional experience – one of those ‘to know we are not alone’ books. While so beautifully bound to a place and time, it’s magic is its universality.
”I’m delighted to be part of this celebration, where I’ll share one of my prize-winning poems ‘Sunset Song and The Terminators’.”
For more information, please email Charles Roberts-McIntosh friendsofgrassicgibbon@gmail.com; or see the Facebook pages of The Wee Gaitherin, Grassic Gibbon Centre or Arbuthnott Parish Hall & Community Association.