Friends of Brian Johnstone

Friends of Brian Johnstone on Voice Over

Voice Over is the final collection of poetry from the late Brian Johnstone and is published by Red Squirrel Press. It contains a selection of his later work, and also some earlier unpublished poems which had been in various stages of completion before Brian finessed them into versions he was happy with.

We will be celebrating this new collection with his friends, poets: John Glenday, Dawn Wood, Andy Jackson, and Rebecca Sharp. They will be performing a selection of Brian's poems on what is going to be a very special evening.

Brian was an energetic promoter of poetry and an enabler of fellow-poets and writers; he took great pleasure in the successes of the many poets whose work he had championed and supported over several decades. His valuable years of stewardship and oversight of the StAnza Poetry Festival in St Andrews was so consuming that it kept him away from his own writing. He was indeed a fine poet, as this collection bears out.

In typical Brian fashion, he had clear ideas about the order of the poems and the way he wanted them to fit with the connecting theme of the book – the technicalities of moviemaking and cinema, and the lasting power of the image. They are presented by Red Squirrel Press as closely as possible to his intended manuscript.

Photo Credit: Gerry Cambridge