HI~Arts is delighted to announce the appointment of Stephen Watts as the first poet to the 'Embedded Poets Project', Stephen will be working on the theme of suicide in the Highlands and Islands.

Stephen Watts, said:

"I am very excited by this commission. It will require of me hard and sensitive work – always a good thing – and it has the potential to pull poetry back into close, strong contact with people’s individual lives. I feel that it can also provide an impulse to bring the passion of poetry back close to the sense of community. This commission – to create a body of work around issues of suicide in the Highlands and Islands – will, I believe, foster the engaged commit-ment and creative empathies that are basic to poetry, as to our individual and community lives. I feel very, very positive about this.

"Language, for me, is innately celebratory and both language and poetry matter a lot in our lives. I am also aware that they can be a resource for the outlet of stress and pain for us : all of us listen – or fail to listen – to each other. For me much of the poetry of living is precisely in such listening : writing poetry parallels both the balances and tensions within our lives.

"I am very much looking forward, with a calm passion, to this commission and the chance to expand on ground-breaking work, and I welcome also the possibility of returning to places in the Highlands and Islands that mean a great deal to me and that I feel are rooted in my poetry. The potential for making new work available is equally exciting: I believe strongly that real creative expression, built on a respect for individuals and the individuality of shared language, has a positive role to play in the issues and concerns of this Hi~Arts ‘Embedded Poets Project’.

Robert Livingston, Director, HI~Arts, said:

‘We’re delighted to welcome, as our first Embedded Poet, a writer of considerable standing and experience. Stephen will bring a fresh and informed perspective to this important theme.’

Stephen's work in the Highlands and Islands will commence in January 2006.