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Douglas Lipton
began writing in the 1960s in reaction to early exposure to the lyrical
wonders
of the Incredible String Band. Around the same time he was encouraged
by enlightened teachers to read Flann O’Brien, Stevie Smith
and e.e. cummings.
A chance find in his school library, Edwin Morgan’s beautifully designed
Second Life, opened further doors. John Peel played sessions by Ivor
Cutler,
and friends were reading George Mackay Brown’s Fishermen With Ploughs,
Ian Hamilton Finlay, Kafka and Pete Morgan. Others educated his ears with Captain
Beefheart, Love and the Third Ear Band. Shakespeare, Dickens and Mervyn Peake
(the poetry and illustrative work, too) began also to hold Lipton in thrall,
and a few years further on, Hardy, John Donne, D.H. Lawrence (the poet) and Blake
cast their respective spells. Listening to the Incredible String Band led inevitably
to reading Robert Graves and to a love of ‘traditional’ ‘world’ music
(what do you call it?). Then there were the Ballads, and Dunbar, Fergusson, Hogg,
Scott, Stevenson, Grassic Gibbon, Edwin Muir, McDiarmid’s lyric poems,
William Soutar, W.S. Graham, Norman MacCaig, the songs of Robert Burns and
Robin Jenkins’s The Cone-Gatherers.
In those years, the freedoms of the great outdoors also beckoned, and Glaswegian Lipton, inspired by his parents and the Scout movement, fell for the Scottish Highlands and Islands, taking to the hills regularly with friends for extended and self-sufficient back-packing ventures, a habit which he has not managed to break despite thirty-five years of tick-bites, midges, clegs, storms, ‘No Camping’ signs, barbed-wire fences, bad beer, bogs and blisters. He stopped smoking; discovered whisky, rum (thanks to writer, Dave Broom) and Traquair Jacobite Ale. During hikes, books were shared, poems and diaries written. Even an abortive and somewhat satirical hikers’ manual was collaboratively compiled with long-term companion Michael Warren. Other writers and lyricists have continued to captivate Lipton: Edith Södergran, Emily Dickinson, Alain-Fournier, Tarjei Vesaas, John Steinbeck, August Strindberg, Andrew Marvell, Charles Palliser, Janice Galloway, the ‘Metaphysical’ poets, James Ellroy, Brecht, Sorley Maclean, the Jacobean dramatists, Anne Frank, Philip Pullman, Gary Snyder, Primo Levi (a wonderful poet), Ágnes Nemes Nagy, Kalevala, Raymond Carver, Carolyn Forché and Bruce Chatwin in literature; and in song: Will Oldham, The Feelies, Tim Buckley, The Pixies, Sparklehorse, cLOUDDEAD, Virginia Rodrigues, Neil Young, Joy Division, Van Morrison, Nanci Griffith, The Handsome Family, Rokia Traoré, Huun-Huur-Tu, Television, Magazine, Syd Barrett, Michael Marra (a national treasure), Mazzy Star, Tom Waits and Robert Wyatt. If you’re interested, Douglas Lipton also finds ineffable beauty and intense excitement in the music of Eric Satie, Robert Carver, Toumani Diabate, Djeli Moussa Diawara, Joanna Newsom, Mr McFall’s Chamber, Sibelius, Phamie Gow, Emily Smith and the Cauld Blast Orchestra. He loves the visual artwork of Gaudi, Gauguin, Goya, Scottie Wilson, David McClure, Odilon Redon, Vermeer, El Greco and Miro (representing the past); and Keith McIntyre, John Bellany, Abigail McLellan, printmaker Kenny Morrison and Alasdair Wallace (the - Scottish - present), and George Shaw (from England). His favourite cinema includes: Picnic at Hanging Rock, Walkabout, Amelie, Don ‘t Look Now, The Exorcist, Cabaret, Unforgiven, Show Me Love (Lukas Moodysson), Apocalypse Now, My Life As A Dog, Betty Blue, Blue Velvet (Lipton did his courting to these last three), Derek Jarman’s The Tempest, Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet, The Night of the Hunter, Leon, Ring (Nakate), Dersu Uzala, The Girl on the Bridge, The Hairdresser’s Husband (these two by Patrice Leconte), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the Marx Brothers, Humphrey Bogart, Juliette Lewis, L.A. Confidential and Magnolia. And buildings? - So many inspire, but these have held particular sway: Lincoln Cathedral, Callanish, Maes Howe, Kibble Palace, the Standing Stones of Stenness, Stirling Castle, Hadrian’s Wall, the Scottish Poetry Library, Caerlaverock and Carnasserie castles, Abbaye du Thoronet, the Kilmartin Valley complex, the Eden Project, St Magnus Cathedral, Gaudi’s Casa Milá and Sagrada Familia, and any malt whisky distillery and Finnish lakeside sauna you care to visit. All these conspire and continue to influence in imperceptible ways. Family
life, nature, work, history, friendships, food, France, disease, travel, science
and current affairs do the same. Douglas Lipton’s poetry is eclectic
and varied, often with a streak of morbid levity. His proudest literary moment
was discovering one of his poems anthologised between the same covers as a
piece by Robin Williamson. |
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