A poetic experience on Luing could be the starting point for a new tourist trail on the tiny slate island.
As part of a workshop funded by the CHARTS network, (Culture, Heritage & Arts Argyll and Isles) on the theme of Expressing an Island, Emeritus Professor Patrick Corbett from Heriot-Watt University took a group off on a short tour of Luing and gave a lecture on the five geological steps that make up its history going back about 600,000,000 years when Easdale slates were first deposited in a deep ocean setting.
There followed crushing in a continental collision some 450,000,000 years ago, the forming of a magmatic dyke after then impact from a large volcano located over on Mull of a swarm of magmatic dykes about 60,000,000 years ago followed by a glacial melt 10,000 years ago or so.
The group went out to explore the rocks themselves to see how the geological history played a part in Cullipool village being established and its slate trade from the 12th to 20th century.
Luing resident and Director of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics Norman Bissell then led a poetry session as a direct response to what had been taught and observed in the morning.
The contributors, some with previous geological and poetic knowledge or interest, and others coming to this exercise for the first time, later read out their poems.
The workshop also discussed the many ways the experience might be captured in a future geopoetic trail that will inspire visitors to come and experience the
island for themselves.
Caption: Luing’s Expressing An Island geopoetic group exploring the rock history that made Cullipool how it is and was in its slate industry heyday
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