Craig Aitchison:
Tweed conversations I
27 September 2025, 10:30 – 13:30
Little Art Hub, Galashiels
Join Connecting Threads at Little Art Hub, Galashiels, for a session of poetry reading, riverside conversation and printmaking in celebration of Tweed, a new full-length poem in Scots by Borders-based poet Craig Aitchison.
From the “steepin grund” and “moor gress” at the source of the Tweed near Tweedsmuir, through fickle rapids and history’s “constant rub”, the poem winds its own riverine journey across 28 pages, beside empty mills and “precious hauchs” to meet the sea, “giving itself with open arms”, at Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Like the river it celebrates, Tweed is a polyvocal work – the result of multiple conversations and collaborations.Tweed exists in several forms. Book artist Rosemary Everett has created a beautiful limited edition version with help from fellow book artists Felicity Bristow and Susie Wilson.
This art-object combines Craig’s writing with a delicate, multi-layered etching made by Georgie Fay in response to his words, while the pages were letterpress printed by Robert Smail’s Printing Works in Innerleithen. There is also a pamphlet version, richly illustrated with prints made at a public workshop, as well as an audio version read by Craig.
Connecting Threads are delighted to be hosting three riverside gatherings to continue these conversations and community connections.
"This river, this quiet power, this steady, enduring, onward flow.
It will not be owned or identified, not held by word or by writ."
- Craig Aitchison, Tweed, 2025
Hear more from Craig in this interview on the Connecting Threads journal.
Details
10:30am: Meet at the Little Art Hub, Galashiels to hear Craig read sections of Tweed, and to see the Tweed Poem Window Exhibition by Craig, Rosemary Everett and Georgie Fay.
11:15am: Walk to Galafoot (@20 mins easy walk)
Hear Craig read a second extract from his peome Tweed by the river then create your own responses and river inspired collaged prints on a ‘Tweed Conversations Postcard’ with Artist Georgie Fay.
We will be taking these ‘Tweed postcard conversations’ to our first Tweed River Fest: Watery Commons 2025 and final Continuing Conversations event in Peebles over the first weekend in November.
Access
Little Art Hub is accessible but there is no wheelchair accessible toilet.
During the event we will walk along Black Path, which is wheelchair-accessible. At Galafoot, there is a grass surface and some uneven ground.
