Celebrating 30 years of Dream State with its editor Donny O’Rourke

In this extended version of Nothing But The Poem Kevin Williamson interviews Donny O’Rourke, editor of Dream State – The New Scottish Poets which was published in 1994 and remains the gold standard of poetry anthologies, and, arguably, the most visionary poetry anthology ever published in Scotland.

Dream State‘s contributors were all aged under 40 at the time and were assembled by fellow poet and broadcaster Donny O’Rourke. Only 6 of these poets – John Burnside, Carol Ann Duffy, Kathleen Jamie, Jackie Kay, W N Herbert and Robert Crawford had appeared in The New Poetry – Bloodaxe’s high profile generational anthology – the year before.

Donny O’Rourke had his finely tuned ear to the ground, and, as well as the 6 poets listed above, he brought together another 19 Scottish poets under the age of 40, all overlooked by the Bloodaxe anthology. These included Don Paterson, David Kinloch, Meg Bateman, Richard Price, Graham Fulton, Robert Alan Jamieson, Maud Sulter, Alan Riach, and a 28 yer old – and as yet bookless poet – Roddy Lumsden.

Donny O’Rourke was no ordinary editor. He was a visionary with an agenda who not only hoped to achieve a “gathering of forces’ but wanted an anthology with zero fillers and, crucially, for the anthology to be a vital energetic snapshot of all aspects of Scottish life at a time the country had entered a tumultuous phase in its history. Dream State’s ambition was huge: poetry as “news that stays news” as Ezra Pound once wrote. Popular culture, street smart wit, political tensions, scientific discoveries and radical re-imaginings infuse every page.

O’Rourke was no narrow nationalist either, as is stated in the introduction, but drew upon Edwin Morgan as the anthology’s outward looking internationalist and hyper curious guiding spirit. Dream State was egalitarian in its sense of purpose from the outset. From Alasdair Gray came the inclusive definition of Scots as anyone who lived in Scotland, or who was from Scotland and left. Dream State was relatively balanced gender-wise too (for the 1990s). 15 male poets and 10 female poets. The New Poetry on the other hand had just 17 women poets out of its 55 contributors. In Dream State we also hear the words of many working class poets, perhaps abandoned by much of the politics of the time, making their voices heard.

In this podcast Donny O’Rourke sits down in the Scottish Poetry Library with Kevin Williamson (who was publishing and editing Rebel Inc magazine at the same time) to revisit the creative riot that was the early 1990s. They discuss Dream State and the time and place which gave birth to it.

Dream State The New Scottish Poets was published by Polygon.