Day 7 and a half

Time for another recommendations package, do you think? Yes? Yes, I do too.

This evening (Saturday 18th)

Danny Wallace

He seems to go out of his way to do unique things and talk about those unique things in a way that makes us laugh out loud. Tonight at 8.30PM in the ScottishPower Studio Theatre he'll be sharing his debut fiction, 'Charlotte Street', a story of a man fixated on the photographs inside a discarded disposable camera.

Junot Díaz & Nathan Englander

I've already seen both these very talented humans in action, and I can promise that they are extraordinarily engaging and likeable. Tonight at 7PM in the RBS Corner Theatre they'll be talking about their work. See you there!

Tomorrow (Sunday 19th)

Ali Smith

Her keynote speech at the Writers' Conference today provoked whoops of appreciation and howls of laughter from the audience. Need I say more? Sunday will see her in the RBS Main Theatre at 11.30AM. Be there or face the consequences.

Don Paterson

A much-beloved Scottish poet whose work never fails to produce both thought and emotion in its readers. See him in the ScottishPower Studio Theatre at 7PM this Sunday.

The day after tomorrow (Monday 20th)

Roald Dahl Funny Prize Event

This is a special one. It's for little 'uns – and big 'uns – and will feature chat about comedy, and why comedy can be particularly tricky. The participants are Liz Pichon (left), Rose Impey, and Philip Ardagh, who has recently been provoking (embarrassingly loud) guffaws on Twitter, so we'll see you in the RBS Corner Theatre at 5PM on Monday if you like a laugh. And who doesn't like a laugh?

Joyce Carol Oates

I hesitate to mention this event here, because it's selling so fast it might get a nosebleed, but at time of writing there are still tickets available – so grab them now! Joyce Carol Oates is, of course, one of the world's most respected novelists. Her event is on Monday at 11.30AM in the RBS Main Theatre.

"It's that poetry again"

From Li Po, to Battlestar Gallactica, from two trees to evidence against intelligent design (his back and male genitals), Don Paterson was in sterling form on a wide variety of topics at his reading this morning. Introduced by Nick Barley, director and fan of guest poetry selector Paterson, Don started his hour long set with the lovely 'Two Trees', of Don Miguel's idea to fuse a lemon and an orange tree together, and of how those trees were split asunder. 'And trees are all this poem is about.' he ends, though it took writer and friend Will Fiennes to dissect the meaning for him, as sometimes the meaning isn't apparent to the poet till after. As with the series of elegies written after the death of his good friend the poet Michael Donaghy, as if his sub-conscious were forcing him to address his passing. He read another for the passing of Peter Porter - in a session which found itself ruminating upon death and ageing and change - glad Faber managed to complete Porter's Selected Works just in time to bike it over on the day he died. "Managed to get a smile out of him".

The whole reading was built of these meandering glimpses of insight - to a poem, to a poet, to a friend, a son, to the process - making it a hugely entertaining and revealing session. He dipped into a few aphorisms, causing much hilarity with 'Aphorism, a brief waste of time. Poetry a complete waste of time. Novel a monumental waste of time', explaining that the aphorism invites bitchiness, often about other aphorists. He wheeled back to read from the multi-award winning Landing Light, poems for his twin sons - a balanced number for each, re that contractual obligation that is the problem with twins. Told of receiving an email from Amazon, suggesting he'd like to pre-order a forthcoming book on Shakespeare's Sonnets, not yet written by himself. The paperback cover of Rain, a Rebus novella lookalike? "Here's hoping." An epithalamium for friends rewritten featuring aliens, having been inspired by the box set of Battlestar Gallactica (I refused to watch this show, so my better half's glee at Don's approbation was exaggerated). A translation of Li Po, remarking on his friend Du Fu's failed health, skinny as a nail, wan as the moon, saying 'it's that poetry again'.

So it was that poetry again, to which we turn, as Nick Barley said in his intro, to hear our experiences articulated. Stellar stuff.

Curdle your coffee

Death, madness, suicide and cats. Dying ones. Robin Robertson's Wake up to Words session in the Highland Park Spiegeltent was, as he said himself, likely to curdle the delicious free coffee. Fellow poet, guest selector and friend Don Paterson introduced with as many flourishing words as he dared - among which the lovely 'Robin's poems translate the world into sound' - we were told the format of the event was that 'Robin will read and then he will stop.' No questions, just an hour of poetry. Heaven.

However, Robertson's poetry often revels in a vision of hell. That poor cat, his moment in the sun teed off with 'I'll read one about cats. Normally I say I don't like cats and 6 or 7 people leave the room. So I'll not do that this time.' In 'Cat, Failing', the cat is dying, with the 'shame/ of being found out'. Robertson's dreams - "another uncomfortable dream for you" - transmuted into poetry, of sexual encounters with hairy-chested witches, among other nightmares. He read one he'd written for Sean O'Brien, that he revealed - drily - O'Brien had deemed obscene. He mixed old and new; 'Donegal', a tender one for his daughter from his first collection, then a long, new sequence on Strindberg, who Robertson admires, "less for his work and more for the catastrophe of his life."

In attempting to find something cheerier, he plumped "far from it!" with a poem about a chest haemorrhage, written in haste before his friend the novelist Alan Warner (as it happened, in the same booth with us) could use the real-life episode in his next book. "It [the chest] was all open. Did you get that? Wouldn't want to send you away dissatisfied." He did read a little funny called 'The Tweed' about giving Hugh MacDiarmid a back rub, before finishing with the exquisite 'At Roane Head'; with such staggering musicality and Robertson's wonderful, sonorous voice, this was an hour filled with amazed fixed grimaces and curdled coffee, but also those fizzy head moments poetry can bring; a sensation I'm led to understand the music world calls an eargasm.