The Scottish Poetry Library worked with poets Douglas Dunn, Vicki Feaver and Diana Hendry on a commission to write on the theme of age. This new work is part of The Baring Foundation’s ‘Late Style’ artist commissions series.
These three significant and consistently inventive writers confound restrictive perceptions. With humour, melancholy and wisdom, they tackle what a person loses as he or she ages – and what they gain.
This collection was created with the help of The Baring Foundation, which enables the creation of opportunities for older people to enjoy and participate in the arts. The ‘Late Style’ series of commissions supports leading professional artists, all of whom are over 70, to bring their original and exceptional artistic craft and insights to the theme of age. Eleven new works will reach a variety of spaces and audiences, between 2015 and 2017.
 | Diana HendryDiana Hendry is a poet, short story writer and the author of many children’s books. Diana was Writer in Residence at Dumfries & Galloway Royal Infirmary l997- 1998 and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Edinburgh 2008-2010. She has published six collections of poetry: Making Blue (1995), Borderers (2001) both published by Peterloo; Twelve Lilts: Psalms & Responses (2003) and, with Tom Pow, Sparks! (2005) both published by Mariscat.; Late Love & Other Whodunnits (Peterloo/Mariscat 2008) and The Seed-Box Lantern: New & Selected Poems (Mariscat 2013). In 2013 she wrote the libretto for a choral work, The Pied Piper, music by John G Mortimer and performed in Switzerland. In 2015 she was one of the poets invited to write on the theme of creative ageing by the Baring Foundation and her poems can be found in the resulting anthology, Second Wind (Saltire Society, 2015) Hendry’s short stories have been widely published and broadcast and a collection, The Sweet Possessive is to be published by Red Squirrel in 2017. She has published more than forty books for children including Harvey Angell which won a Whitbread Award in 1991 and The Seeing (2012) which was shortlisted both for a Costa Award and a Scottish Children’s Book Award. Diana was awarded a joint Robert Louis Stevenson fellowship with Hamish Whyte in 2007. She is assistant editor of Mariscat Press. Diana’s latest children’s book is a junior novel, Out of the Clouds (Hodder 2016) with a sequel, Whoever You Are due out next year. Currently she is co-editor with Gerry Cambridge of New Writing Scotland |
