Books by Gerry Loose

Gerry Loose was born in Ireland in 1953 and lives in Glasgow. His background is in horticulture and agriculture, and has farmed in Kerry and market-gardened both in Ireland and in Scotland, where he trained in conservation and ecology. His writing began to coincide with his other interests in the 1990s, when he was made Poet-in-Residence at Glasgow's Botanic Gardens, and he created a Poetry Garden. In 2004, as part of Entente Cordiale 100, he was sent to Montpellier, France, to fulfill a similar role in France's oldest botanic garden. In 2006 he was Robert Louis Stevenson Fellow, living at Stevenson's old house, where he was to complete a manusctript dealing with his travels in "nuclear" landscapes: the New Mexican deserts, the Mojave, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Faslane in Scotland, although entry into the latter landscape is impossible. This particular task led from a project, and the poet's own inclinations, where he brought a persimmon tree from Japan to Glasgow Botanics. The tree was grown from the seed of persimmon tree that survived the Nagasaki A-bomb. He is currently (2006-7) engaged on a project to write and respond to the geology, history, birds, plants, folklore and language of Sunart Oakwoods in Ardnamurchan (West of Scotland) for which he received a Creative Scotland award from the Scottish Arts Council. The woods were once home to communities producing charcoal, bark tan and timber, and are now the subject of a major conservation effort.