He cuts a striking figure in his Lindsay tartan kilt, black shirt and jacket with a black beard and long black curly hair straying from under his cap. In his hand is what at first glance looks like a huge butterfly net. He sits by the side of the road like a vagrant. But he is not begging for money: he is begging for poems. Andrew Newman is the Pavement Poem Catcher.
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“By the end of the day I had 58 of them, each using the word QUAKE for inspiration. Quite a few had the word 'time' in them, so that became the theme for day 2. The third day’s theme was 'soul' and the fourth 'happiness'. By the end of that fourth day, I had 139 poems in seven different languages. I also had two photographs donated by people who said they couldn’t write poetry but could offer something else.” One of these photographs, of a grain of pollen taken through a microscope, became the cover of the book Quake – Built from Nothing. Some of the poems were written by poets performing at the festival. One of them, by the Canadian poet John Akpata, particularly appeals to him, perhaps because it pokes a little fun at the way he’d approached the project. His poem was called The Thief of Fife: In St Andrew’s [sic] I met a charming confident thief A man named Andrew from Cape Town Who arrived with a cap on his head That hid the cap in his hand He boldly and brazenly asked poets to write poems for him For an anthology that he planned to print and sell at the festival Where he was not famous, not a feature A stylish vagabond from the fringe Who unashamed and unabashed and unhindered Bamboozled the bards into planting seeds in his yard And he proudly sold their work back to them And he proudly wallowed in his shamelessness As he allowed the poets to create and donate Their words, which are all stolen And give to the thief of Fife A man named Andrew who arrived in St Andrew’s With a cap on his head That hid the cap in his hand The books sold quickly. All of the proceeds from the first 50 went to SOS Children’s Villages. The next 50 were sold privately to raise the money for another print run. The book is still in print and £3 from every one sold goes to the same charity, helping Haiti’s children. The project also taught Newman that, as well as fundraising for charity, he could also turn it into a business. Becoming a publisher with no publishing experience was, he admits, “a steep learning curve”. He chose the self-publishing route because it gave him control over the whole process. Newman has had to learn about desktop publishing, about indexing and cover design. He has also developed techniques which mean that anthologies of the poetry he gathers can be rolling off the presses within an hour of creating the file. As a therapist in Edinburgh (based at the Salisbury Centre), Newman works with a wide range of organisations. He realised that he could use the same techniques to help them raise money. “I’ve been working with a school in Haddington,” he says. “There’s a group of 27 kids needing to fund-raise for a trip to Nicaragua. “So we make a book together. It does a couple of things. On an educational level, I’m doing an inspiration/creative writing piece, along with discussing social enterprise and teaching them how to make a book and what’s involved in that. They do the work, write the content, design the cover and the rest. "They get involved in marketing the book, arranging a book launch and so forth. The way it works is that they buy the books at £5 each and sell it on for £10, putting the profits towards the trip to Nicaragua. There’s great learning experience to be gained from it all.” Newman’s latest project is a further development of his business model. He has been back on the streets of St Andrews, begging for poems about the Royal Wedding. He has also been in other parts of the country doing the same. But he is still on the lookout for more, insisting that “I’d love to have the problem that a thousand poems arrive because Britain’s been inspired to write poetry about this event. “But this is also a first, in that I’ve never gathered material for a book ahead of the event before. The idea is to publish it on the day of the wedding. I’ll be in London on the day with a couple of hundred copies, selling them from my suitcase. I’ll also be gathering poems about what people felt on that day. “I also have a concept in my mind about creating what I’d call ‘neighbourhood books', where the poems would be published by geography. I haven’t worked the back end of that out yet as it’s a little bit technical. But what I have in mind is a series of books defined by post code so they could be completely relevant to a particular area. What I’d really like is for people who are organising street parties on the day of the wedding to buy copies of their local book at £5 (just like the kids) which they could then sell for £10 to help pay for the event.” Newman has offered samples of the poems already submitted to The Caledonian Mercury in the hope that some readers may themselves feel inspired. The following, for instance, is from the Edinburgh-based poet, Simon Maclaren, and is entitled Proposition–Preposition: In St Andrews by the sea under pressure in the lens under the microscope in the papers over the top in love on one knee in the abbey in the carriage in the future on the throne An ebook is already available of some of the other poems received. The Caledonian Mercury plans to publish more in the days leading up to the Royal Wedding. If any readers feel inspired to write their own poems, they can submit them to Andrew Newman by following one of these two links.Donate to us: support independent, intelligent, in-depth Scottish journalism from just 3p a day
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