Explore every episode of the podcast Scottish Poetry Library Podcast

Possessing a friendship that spanned the Atlantic, Scotland’s John Burnside (1955-2024) and America’s Allison Funk were captured in conversation, speaking about what they enjoy about each other’s countries, from poetry and music to the mutability of the landscape and people.

Allison Funk is the author of four volumes of verse, including The Tumbling Box (2009). John Burnside’s Black Cat Bone (2011), is one of only two titles to have won both the Forward Prize and the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry.

In a conversation that runs from delta blues to Virginia Woolf, Funk and Burnside explain the way in which they’ve influenced each other’s work while still being ‘opposite sides of the same coin’.

Victoria Chang is the subject of this month's Nothing But The Poem podcast. The Taiwanese-American poet has had seven collections of poetry published, her most recent - With My Back To The World (2024) - winning the Forward Prize for Best Poetry Collection.

​'Chang has liberated the Ekphrastic form to new lyric heights and depths. Inventive, meditative, audacious, strange and soulful ... that engages the eye and mind as much as the ear and heart' ​- Raymond Antrobus

'Chang invites readers to query depression, grief, and the purpose of art. There are no answers here, only an ongoing conversation.' - Emily Pèrez

Our resident podcast host Sam Tongue took an immersive dive into two Victoria Chang poems Mr Darcy and Edward Hopper's Office at Night. Find out what Sam - and the Friends Of The SPL group - took from these poems in our Nothing But The Poem podcast.

A short audio recording to accompany the Moon Tell Me Truth exhibition at the Scottish Poetry Library.

Ann an Hai-Àidh #5, thagh Peigi Nic a’ Phiocair ‘Oidhche Na' Mo Chadal Dhomh’ le Nellie Ruadh, dàn a chaidh lorg o chionn ghoirid ann an tasglann, agus Joy Dunlop ‘An Roghainn’, aon de Dàin do Eimhir le Somhairle MacGill-Eain, mar òran le fonn ùr a rinn Dòmhnall Seathach. Tha Peigi agus Joy a’ leughadh, a’ seinn, agus a’ còmhradh air briathran blasta agus faireachdainnean làidir.

For Hai-Àidh #5, Peigi MacVicar picks Nellie Ruadh’s song ‘Oidhche Na' Mo Chadal Dhomh’, a recent archival discovery, and Joy Dunlop brings in ‘An Roghainn’, one of Sorley MacLean’s Dàin do Eimhir, set to music by Donald Shaw. Peigi and Joy read, sing, and chat about tasty words and strong feelings.

Our usual host, Sam Tongue, is back from paternity leave, and between feeds and nappy changes has recorded the latest episode of our regular Nothing But The Poem poetry podcast. Special thank you to Aoife Lyall for stepping in and producing 3 wonderful NBTP podcasts on Jane Clarke, Eavan Boland and Billy Collins. Much appreciated.

Sam's subject this month is Nuala Watt, an emerging poet, whose work is increasingly recognised for its unique voice, formal daring, and fierce authenticity. Nuala Watt is partially sighted and her poems lead us through "the bureaucratic labyrinth of government assessment, the anxious joy of expecting a child and, with verve and originality, the realities of being a disabled parent".

Fellow poet Alyson Hallett commented: "Sit down before you read these poems. Open the window. Open the door. There's a bolt of pure electric coming for you."

Sam took a deep dive into two poems from Nuala's debut poetry collection, The Department of Work and Pensions Assesses a Jade Fish, which has just been published by Blue Diode  Press. Find out what Sam - and the Friends Of The SPL group - got from these poems in our Nothing But The Poem podcast.

Ann an Hai-Àidh #4, thagh Meg Bateman ‘Cànan na Deighe’ le Beth Frieden agus Joy Dunlop ‘Nam Aonar le Mo Smaointean’ le Iain MacLeòid. Tha Meg agus Joy a’ leughadh nan dàin agus a’ bruidhinn orra, a’ lorg ceanglaichean eadar dàn a tha cho ùr ’sa ghabhas agus òran tradaiseanta. Cuspairean a’ mhìos: dàimh ri àite, fuaimean fuachd, agus bàrdachd mar tùs-ùrachaidh agus mar chomas-iongantais.

In Hai-Àidh #4, Meg Bateman chose ‘Cànan na Deighe’ by Beth Frieden, and Joy Dunlop brought in ‘Nam Aonar le Mo Smaointean’ by John MacLeod. Meg and Joy read the poems and have a chat about them, bringing together a very recent Gaelic poem with a traditional song. This month’s themes include relationship to place, the sound of ice, and the power of poetry to make us look anew.

Billy Collins, the former Poet Laureate of the United States, is the latest subject of the Nothing But The Poem podcast. With our regular podcast host Sam Tongue on paternity leave this edition has Bloodaxe poet Aoife Lyall taking a deep dive into two of Billy Collins's poems, which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.

Billy Collins is one of the world's most loved poets, famed for his directness, accessibility and playful wit. Carol Ann Duffy could not have given higher praise when she said: "Billy Collins is one of my favourite poets in the world."

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune concurred: "Collins is absolutely charming. He deserves every rose he's flung these days... His poems are irresistible."

John Updike commented: "Billy Collins writes lovely poems... Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious that they seem, they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others beside."

The two poems discussed in this podcast are Introduction to Poetry from The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988) and Tension from Ballistics (2008).

Eavan Boland is the latest subject of the Nothing But The Poem podcast. With our regular podcast host Sam Tongue on paternity leave this edition has Bloodaxe poet Aoife Lyall taking an immersive look into two of Eavan Boland's poems, which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.

Eavan Boland is one of the central figures of modern Irish poetry, a poet who, according to her publishers Carcanet, "came to be known for her exquisite ability to weave myth, history, and the life of an ordinary woman into mesmerising poetry."

Elaine Feinstein, writing in the Poetry Review, said: "Boland is one of the finest and boldest poets of the last half-century."

Iain Crichton Smith wrote: "She has the equipment of the true poet, that is to say an image-making faculty, a true devoted eye and an ear for rhythm."

The two poems discussed in this podcast are The Poets from New Territory (Allen Figgis, 1967) and Moths from In A Time Of Violence (Carcanet, 1994).

Jane Clarke is the latest subject of the Nothing But The Poem podcast. Jane Clarke is an Irish poet; the author of three poetry collections and an illustrated poetry booklet. Our regular podcast host Sam Tongue is currently on paternity leave and this edition has Bloodaxe poet Aoife Llyall taking an immersive look into three of Jane Clarke's poems, which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.

Poet Carol Rumens wrote that Jane Clarke's poems were "rooted in the landscape of the west of Ireland and the farming context in which the lives of individual humans are played out asserts its own rhythm and narrative. In honouring this larger context Clarke enlarges her poetic field with an unobtrusive but important ecopoetic dimension."

The Irish novelist Anne Enright has praised her poems for their "clean, hard-earned simplicity and a lovely sense of line."

The three poems discussed in this podcast are When Winter Comes and Hers both from When The Tree Falls (Bloodaxe Books, 2019) and Daily Bread from The River (Bloodaxe Books, 2015).

On Wednesday 27th September 2023 the acclaimed Haitian poet Bertony Louis visited the Scottish Poetry Library to speak at an event where he discussed how his poetry intersects with the situation in Haiti.

Before the event Bertony recorded a podcast with the SPL; speaking about his life and work. Bertony spoke in French, which was translated simultaneously.

Kei Miller is the latest subject of the Nothing But The Poem podcast. Kei Miller is a Forward Prize-winning Jamaican poet; a prolific author who has published 5 collections of poetry as well as many books of fiction and essays. Our regular podcast host Sam Tongue takes a deep dive into two of his poems, which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.

Jamaica Gleaner wrote: "Kei Miller is a poet who tells his stories in the haunting voices of Jamaica's underprivileged. His tales are stories that haven't been told; they call out from the pages to be heard by Caribbean readers and by the wider world."

In the PN Review, John Robert Lee wrote: "His prose – fiction and non-fiction – and his poetry... do not avoid the murky ‘corners’ of life in Jamaica, racism in the UK and wider world, personal encounters with religion and gender issues. In navigating ‘away from’ and through our contemporary world, he is redrawing our literary maps."

The two poems discussed in this podcast are Book of Genesis and Speaking in tongues. Both poems are from the 2007 collection, There Is an Anger that Moves, and both poems can also be found on the Poetry Archive website read by Kei Miller himself.

Douglas Dunn is one of Scotland's most decorated poets - he has an OBE and a Queen's Medal - as well as one of Scotland's most loved poets. He is undoubtedly a major Scottish poet, editor and critic, whose Elegies (1985), is a moving account of his first wife’s death. The book became a critical and popular success.

His books – including 10 collections of poetry and 2 of short stories, and a translation of Racine’s Andromache – are consistently well reviewed in the national press, while his work has been the object of much academic attention and has been extensively translated (there are editions in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Slovak, Armenian and Japanese, at least).

In this Nothing But The Poem podcast, regular host Sam Tongue and the NBTP group appraise 3 of Dunn's poems. The poems span almost 5 decades: from Terry Street in 1969 to his most recent collection in 2017. 

Dunn himself "once observed that much of poetry ‘depends on the exposure of the heart’, and that ‘there should be no holding back’. This is true of his work, for all its formal restraint. Whether writing of civic society, mourning, or domestic contentment, Douglas Dunn gives us heart-felt witness that ‘life is the best thing that can happen to us’." - Dr Jules Smith

The poems discussed in the podcast are TAY BRIDGE (1'10) and SECOND OPINION (7'35). Sam also reads a third poem THURSDAY (14'15). The texts for all 3 poems can be found here on the Scottish Poetry Library website.

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, 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, despite its vitality and excellence, on the other hand had just 17 women poets out of its 55 contributors. We also hear the words of many working class poets in Dream State, 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 Books was published by Polygon.

In a fair and equal world Toronto-based poet Dionne Brand would be widely recognised as one of the world’s foremost practitioners of poetry. Yet, in the UK for instance, her work hasn’t always been easy to find. Until, that is, Penguin Modern Classics published Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems in 2023.

Nomenclature is a huge tome – 623 pages long – which collects together 8 of Brand’s previous poetry collections as well as a new long form poem which gives the book its title. This is the essential Dionne Brand all gathered together in one place.

Brand’s work has a clear-eyed politically-conscious intensity, underpinning her textual experiments and linguistic adventures. She is immersed in the unflinching world of testimony, while looking forward, dreaming of a less hostile tomorrow. She chooses not to wrap human struggles or the human condition in a transcendent glow nor to swaddle in cotton wool memories. In Inventory she writes:

I have nothing soothing to tell you

that’s not my job

my job is to revise and revise this bristling list

hourly.

In Lux magazine Brand was described by Sarah Matthews as “resolutely Black, decolonial, internationalist, lesbian, and staunchly, unswervingly leftist. Both her poetry and her activism take that fateful youthful epiphany of realizing the tear in the world, then make it a portal of observance and imagining.”

Dionne Brand was the subject of the SPL’s Nothing But The Poem podcast. Our usual host, Sam Tongue, took a deep dive into two of her poems. Both can be found online at the Griffin Poetry Prize website.

THIRSTY

FROM VERSO 4

Find out what Sam - and the Friends Of The SPL group - got from the two poems in our Nothing But The Poem podcast.

(KW)

Welsh poet Jonathan Edwards is the latest subject of the Nothing But The Poem podcast. As always our host Sam Tongue takes a deep dive into two of his poems which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.

Jonathan Edwards is a multi-award winning poet - including the Costa Book Prize for Poetry (2014) and the Troubadour Poetry Prize in 2022 - and has had two full collections of poetry published: My Family And Other Superheroes (2014) and Gen (2018).

Edwards' poems draw lovingly from pop culture and sport, as well as from his family, community and a sense of Welshness. His first collection was described by critic Alice Vincent as having poems "in which celebrities and fictional characters such as Sophia Loren and Evel Knievel collide with reflections on the social architecture of working class Welsh valleys."

The two poems discussed in this podcast are Evel Knievel Jumps Over My Family and Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in Crumlin for the Filming of Arabesque, June 1965

American poet Ross Gay is the subject of the new Nothing But The Poem podcast. The SPL’s regular podcast host, Sam Tongue, takes a deep dive into two of his poems which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.

Ross Gay was born in Ohio and now teaches at Indiana University. He's the author of 4 poetry collections and 3 books of essays. His specialist subject is joy! On his website intro it states:

Ross Gay is interested in joy.

Ross Gay wants to understand joy.

Ross Gay is curious about joy.

Ross Gay studies joy.

Something like that.

Robert Eric Shoemaker wrote on the Poetry Foundation website:

Poet Ross Gay takes his office hours in his garden and is often unreachable by technology. Imagine the delight (little delights, perhaps, in his Book of Delights) of being unreachable among the dirt and the plants, or of smiling in discussion with a friend, student, or colleague among the smell of apples trees. Go try it!

The two poems discussed in this podcast are Poem To My Child If Ever You Should Be and Sorrow Is Not My Name

As part of our Poetry Unravelled project, we invited three poets – Victoria McNulty, Beth McDonough and Craig Houston - to join project-lead Julie McNeil for conversation and readings around their experiences of dyslexia and neurodiversity. We discussed how they first engaged with poetry and the challenges raised by educational settings, especially around identifying a lack of dyslexia-friendly poetry resources available for individuals and schools. We also recorded poems reflecting on these themes, showcasing the transformative power of poetry, whether listening, reading, or creating. The resources from the project will be made available on our website soon. For more information, please contact project and learning coordinator Samuel Tongue.

Anthony Vahni Capildeo is the subject of the new Nothing But The Poem podcast. The SPL’s regular podcast host, Sam Tongue, takes a deep dive into two of their poems which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.

A Trinidadian-Scottish writer of poetry and non-fiction, Anthony Vahni Capildeo has published eight books and eight pamphlets, including Measures of Expatriation which won the 2016 Forward Prize. Their most recent poetry collection is Like a Tree, Walking (Carcanet, 2021).

Beth Cochrane in The Skinny said of the collection: ‘ 'Vahni Capildeo has always been a remarkable and singular poet, and Like a Tree, Walking is yet another triumph of their warm wit, direct vision, and almost spiritual connection to the page....The collection is welcoming, disarming, and - as its blurb commands - 'defined by how it writes about love.' The poetry within is to be celebrated, read, and reread by poets and not-poets alike.'’

Jen Campbell wrote: 'I would follow Vahni Capildeo's poetry to the ends of the Earth, I just think that they're amazing...I love this book very much.' 

High praise indeed!

The two poems discussed in this podcast are To London and Migraine Improv.

Helen Mort is the subject of the new Nothing But The Poem podcast. The SPL’s regular podcast host, Sam Tongue, takes a deep dive into two of Helen Mort’s poems which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.

Helen Mort is an award winning poet from Sheffield who's had 3 collections of poetry published. Her most recent collection, The Illustrated Woman (2022), was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize.

The book's blurb at HelenMort.com reads: 'The Illustrated Woman is a tender and incisive collection about what it means to live in a female body - from the joys and struggles of new motherhood to the trauma of deepfakes.

Andrew McMillan said of the collection: 'These are poems that will leave their indelible mark'

Kate Kellaway, reviewing the book in the Guardian, wrote: The Illustrated Woman explores tattoos through history and, lucid though these poems are, you need to reread them often to acquire the deepest sense of what is being said. Mort presents tattoos variously: as painful and cherished keepsakes, exposure and concealment combined, flirtations with indelibility.

The two poems discussed in this podcast – Ablation and The Tattooed Lady – can be found in No Map Could Show Them (Chatto) and The Illustrated Woman (Penguin).

Am mìos-sa tha Meg Bateman agus Pàdraig MacAoidh a’ còmhradh air ‘Aig an Fhaing’ le Anna Frater agus ‘Duan an Dannsair’ le Flòraidh NicPhàil. Tha an còmhradh a’ dannsa eadar cuspairean a’ leithid dùthchas, treubhan, mic-talla, bròn agus cruthachadh. Stiall oirbh agus èistibh.

Mo chasan dubh, mo chasan dubh..

This month Meg Bateman and Peter Mackay chat about 'At the Fank' by Anne Frater and 'Duan an Dannsair' by Flora MacPhail. The conversation dances between topics like dùthchas, tribes, echoes, sadness and creativity. Have a go and listen.

Jorie Graham is the subject of the new Nothing But The Poem podcast. The SPL’s regular podcast host, Sam Tongue, takes a deep dive into two of Jorie Graham’s poems which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.

Jorie Graham and her poetry are difficult to classify. To get some idea of her thinking and poetic process this illuminating interview should help: Jorie Graham Takes The Long View

Among many things she’s an eco-poet of tremendous power. She’s the author of 15 poetry collections, four of which were collected together as [To] The Last [Be] Human. The poems in these 4 books address the ongoing tragedy of humanity’s destruction of the natural world and, potentially, our own species.

The two poems discussed in this podcast – Full Fathom and Prayer – can both be found in [To] The Last [Be] Humananthology or can be read here on the Poetry Foundation website.

Air Hai-àidh! #2 tha Rona Dhòmhnallach agus Màrtainn Mac an t-Saoir a’ còmhradh air seanachas agus nòsan ùra de bhàrdachd. Tha Rona a toirt thugainn ‘A’ chionn ’s gu robh mi measail ort’ le Meg Bateman agus Martàin Mac an t-Saoir a taghadh an seann òran ‘’S ann a’ bhruadair mi raoir’. Cuspairean: ealachan, gaol, booty calls.

On Hai-àidh! #2 Rona MacDonald and Martin MacIntyre chat about the traditional and the modern in Gaelic poetry. Rona brings us ‘A’ chionn ’s gu robh mi measail ort’ by Meg Bateman and Martin chooses the old song ‘’S ann a Bhruadair Mi Raoir’. Topics included: swans, love, booty calls.

The SPL's regular podcast host Sam Tongue chats with translator Norman Angus, a long time resident of Japan, about the unique challenges of translating Japanese poetry into English and Scots.

Hagiwara Sakutaro is a poet Norman is passionate about bringing to the attention of the English-speaking world. Sakutaro wrote free verse, which, at the time, was revolutionary and liberatory, in a Japan where poetry followed strict rules. In an introduction to his Early Poems, Norman summed up Sakutaro's influence:

'Hagiwara Sakutaro (1886-1942) more than any other individual determined the direction which modern Japanese poetry was to take... Such was the depth of his influence that today it would be hard to name a Japanese poet whose own work has not felt that influence'. 

Sakutaro, who led a Bohemian life, and whose work was initially banned, is often called the Japanese Baudelaire, and is widely considered 'the father of modern colloquial poetry in Japan'.

In this extended Nothing But The Poem podcast Norman Angus introduces, reads, and discusses with Sam Tongue a selection of work by Sakutaro.

The poetry community was shocked and saddened when the much-loved young poet Gboyega Odubanjo died last year. Since then a full length collection of his poetry titled Adam has been published posthumously by Faber; and the Gboyega Odubanjo Foundation for low-income Black writers has been established to honour his legacy.

His poetry hit many raw nerves among readers. Fellow poet Luke Kennard praised his work as 'Deep, funny, thought provoking - a powerful evocation of culture and family with the most assured phrasing and imagery and confident formal innovation.'

Our usual podcast host Samuel Tongue - via an online meet up of the Friends of the SPL group - discussed in depth two of Gboyega's poems: Brother and The Garden

In this LGBTQ+ History Month special edition of Nothing But the Poem, the Scottish Poetry Library's Toni Velikova is joined by Kirsten MacQuarrie, author and Membership Officer from CILIPS Scotland, to chat about three poems by three much loved Scottish LGBTQ+ poets.

STRAWBERRIES by EDWIN MORGAN

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN by MAUD SULTER 

BIOGRAPHY by JACKIE KAY

The poems were discussed at an open-to-all meetup of Friends of the Poetry Library hosted by Toni and Kirsten. An enthralling chat ensued by all accounts!

Have a look at our website to find out about becoming a Friend, and join us for the next Nothing but the Poem meet-up. Or simply enjoy this podcast and the excellent poems therein.

'S e pod-chraolaidh ùr Leabharlann Bàrdachd na h-Alba a th' ann an Hai-àidh! Air gach clàr bi dà phìos bhàrdachd air a thaghadh le dà bhàrd (neo cuideigin aig a bheil ùidh ann am bàrdachd). Sa chiad fhear thagh Pàdraig MacAoidh 'Anns an Dealachadh' le Deborah Moffat agus Màrtainn Mac an t-Saoir 'Chuala sinn losgadh' le Daibhidh Eyre Leughaidh Pàdraig agus Màrtainn na dàin mus bi iad a' còmhradh le chèile mun deidhinn. 

Hai-aidh! is the Scottish Poetry Library’s new Gaelic language poetry podcast. In each episode two Gaelic language poems are selected by two poets (or by guests who love poetry). In this episode Peter Mackay chose 'Anns an Dealachadh' by Deborah Moffat, and Martin MacIntyre chose 'Chuala sinn losgadh' by Daibhidh Eyre Leughaidh.  Peter and Martin read the poems and have a chat about them.

In this podcast, Scottish Poetry Library's Sam Tongue introduces us to three poems by the late Scottish poet, Roddy Lumsden, whose influence continues to reverberate around contemporary poetry.

Roddy's poems were read and discussed at January's monthly online meet-up of Friends of the Poetry Library hosted by Sam. In the podcast Sam reads the 3 poems and gives us his thoughts on them and the discussion they generated.

Have a look at our website to find out about becoming a Friend, and join us for the next Nothing but the Poem meet-up. Or simply enjoy this podcast and the excellent poems therein. 

Scottish Poetry Library’s Sam Tongue runs a monthly online meet-up, where Friends of the Poetry Library get together to read and discuss a fresh poet and their poems. 

In this podcast, Sam introduces us to the general style and format, and enjoys the work of Will Harris.

Have a look at our website to find out about becoming a Friend, and join us for the next Nothing but the Poem meet-up. Or simply enjoy this podcast and the excellent poems therein. 

Scottish Poetry Library’s Sam Tongue runs a monthly online meet-up, where Friends of the Poetry Library get together to read and discuss a fresh poet and their poems. 

In this podcast, Sam introduces us to the general style and format, and enjoys the work of Hannah Hodgson.

Have a look at our website to find out about becoming a Friend, and join us for the next Nothing but the Poem meet-up. Or simply enjoy this podcast and the excellent poems therein. 

This podcast with author Christian McEwen was recorded in the summer of 2013. Christian talks about her book World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down, and about a life built around making the spaces to write and create. Christian works as a freelance writer and workshop leader. For many years, she taught poetry to teachers through the Creative Arts in Learning Program at Lesley University. A collection of her poems, In the Wake of Home, was published by Meadowlark Press in 2004.

Music composed by James Iremonger

Published 26 June, 2014.

Edinburgh’s former Makar, or poet laureate, Christine De Luca wasn’t born in the capital. In this podcast, she tells us about her childhood in Shetland, and how she’s taken her native dialect around the world. She recalls the unexpected impact her poem about the Scottish Referendum ‘The Morning After’ had, and she talks about translating the Finnish epic The Kalevala.

Nicholas Lezard called William Letford ‘the new Scottish genius’, a judgement the SPL is not inclined to disagree with. With a new collection, Dirt (Carcanet), in the shops, we thought it was a good time to catch up with him. We discussed how India changed his life and poetry, whether he’s funnier in Scots, and the influence of work.

This podcast is a recording of the 2015 StAnza International Poetry Festival Round Table event in which SPL Programme Manager and poet Jennifer (JL) Williams was in conversation with the poet Alice Notley. It was recorded shortly before she won the 2015 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

Alice Notley has published over thirty books of poetry, including (most recently) Songs and Stories of the Ghouls, Negativity’s Kiss, and the chapbook Secret ID. With her sons Anselm and Edmund Berrigan, she edited both The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan and The Selected Poems of Ted Berrigan. Notley has received many awards including the Academy of American Poets’ Lenore Marshall Prize, the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Award, the Griffin Prize, two NEA Grants, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Poetry. She lives and writes in Paris, France.

Many thanks to StAnza International Poetry Festival and to James Iremonger for the music in this podcast.

Image: Alice Notley 11.03.11 by kellywritershouse, under a Creative Commons licence

The SPL is pleased to be able to share a treasure from our audio archives: from 2008, a talk by poet and novelist John Burnside on fellow Scottish poet W.S. Graham. During the talk, recorded at the National Library of Scotland before an audience, Burnside talks about poetry and visual art, the poet as nomad and ‘feeding the dead’.

Into Poetry is an exciting new outlet for poetry in both print and online based in Scotland. In the run up to its launch its editor, David Cameron, dropped into the Scottish Poetry Library to chat with Samuel Tongue about the ideas behind the project, its origins and remit, its international reach, including how to submit work and what to expect.

Into Poetry is part of the artistic hub Into Creative which was established in 2013 by Stephen Cameron and can be found at https://intocreative.co.uk  The website also features articles on Music, Art, Movies and Books.

The imprint, Into Books, was established in 2019 with a view to publishing one or two titles per year; with the remit of being "imaginative, challenging and accomplished titles".

Beverley Bie Brahic is a Canadian poet and translator who lives in Paris, France and the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poetry collection, White Sheets, was a finalist for the Forward Prize and a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Her translations include Guillaume Apollinaire, Francis Ponge and Yves Bonnefoy. Suzannah V. Evans spoke with her at StAnza 2020, where she discussed how translating poetry inspires her own work, owning a secret shelf of erotic literature, and being a ‘selfish translator’.

Nancy Campbell is a poet and non-fiction writer who grew up in the Scottish Borders. A series of residencies with Arctic research institutions between 2010 and 2017 has resulted in many projects responding to environmental concerns including How To Say ‘I Love You’ In Greenlandic: An Arctic Alphabet (winner of the Birgit Skiöld Award 2015) and Disko Bay (shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2016 and the 2017 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize). Carol Ann Duffy describes Disko Bay as ‘a beautiful debut from a deft, dangerous and dazzling new poet writing from the furthest reaches of both history and climate change’.

In 2018 Nancy was appointed the Canal Laureate, a project managed by The Poetry Society and the Canal & River Trust. Many of the poems written during this residency were installed along the waterways where they could be seen projected onto warehouses at night, stencilled onto towpaths, or cemented into new fish gates. The poems are collected in Navigations, a pamphlet published by HappenStance Press. 

In 2020 Nancy received the Royal Geographical Society Ness Award for the popularisation of geography through literature. She is currently working on a translation of traditional Greenlandic songs.

In our latest podcast, she talks to Suzannah V. Evans at StAnza, Scotland’s poetry festival.

In this podcast Jennifer Williams interviews poet William Bonar about the publication of his most recent pamphlet, Offering (Red Squirrel Press, 2015).  They also discuss the mythology of memory, Hugh MacDiarmid’s influence on Scots language poetry and a walk through the frozen cradle of Scotland. 

William Bonar was born in Greenock and grew up in the neighbouring shipbuilding town of Port Glasgow. He is a graduate of the universities of Edinburgh and Strathclyde and he gained a distinction on the MLitt in Creative Writing at Glasgow University in 2008. He retired after working in education for 30 years and is a full-time writer. He is a founder member of St Mungo’s Mirrorball, Glasgow’s network of poets.

In this podcast, Jennifer Williams talks to Sophie Collins about experimenting with starting points for creating poems, including using online translators and working with the unconscious; feminism and her role as co-editor of tender, a journal celebrating writing by women and the wide-ranging world of poetry translation from radical to faithful; and much more!

Sophie Collins is also editor of translation anthology Currently & Emotion (Test Centre, 2016). She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2014.

In this podcast Jennifer Williams speaks to Jamaican-born, American-based poet Shara McCallum about her new Robert Burns poetry project which brought her to Scotland for a research visit; the lyric self; female and minority voices in poetry and much more.

Originally from Jamaica, Shara McCallum is the author of five books of poetry, the latest of which is Madwoman.

In this podcast, the T.S. Eliot Prize-winning poet Sarah Howe talks to Jennifer Williams about kicking off the 2016 Edinburgh International Book Festival, writing with multiple languages and alphabets, sense and non-sense in poetry and much more.

Sarah Howe is a British poet, academic and editor. Her first book, Loop of Jade (Chatto & Windus, 2015), won the T.S. Eliot Prize and The Sunday Times / PFD Young Writer of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection.

Born in Hong Kong in 1983 to an English father and Chinese mother, she moved to England as a child. Her pamphlet, A Certain Chinese Encyclopedia (Tall-lighthouse, 2009), won an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors. Her poems have appeared in journals including Poetry Review, Poetry London, The Guardian, The Financial Times, Ploughshares and Poetry, and she has performed her work at festivals internationally and on BBC Radio 3 & 4.

In this podcast, Jennifer Williams meets Nora Gomringer just after her Poetry Centre Stage reading at Scotland’s International Poetry Festival StAnza 2016. They talk about poetry on TV, how poetry can and should include a multiplicity of tones and registers, the joy of bringing poetry alive through the body and much more. Gomringer was born in 1980. Her background is in page-related poetry and spoken word, her present is the vast variety of poetry and recitation.

This podcast was recorded in cooperation with Scotland’s International Poetry Festival StAnza 2016 and with Literature Across Frontiers as part of the Literary Europe Live project supported by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.

If you would prefer to read, rather than listen to, our podcast with Nora Gomringer, click here to see a transcription of the interview.

In this podcast, Jennifer Williams speaks to American poet Linda Russo about the complexities of writing a poetry of place, the challenges and rewards of creating with empathy, and the question, ‘why aren’t we giving up hope?’.

Linda Russo is the author of two books of poetry, Mirth (Chax Press) and Meaning to Go to the Origin in Some Way, and a collection of literary-geographical essays, To Think of her Writing Awash in Light, selected by John D’Agata as winner of the Subito Press lyric essay prize. Participant, winner of the Bessmilr Brigham Poets Prize (Lost Roads Press), is forthcoming. Scholarly essays have appeared in Among Friends: Engendering the Social Site of Poetry (University of Iowa Press) and other edited collections, and as the preface of Joanne Kyger’s About Now: Collected Poems (National Poetry Foundation). She lives in the Columbia River Watershed (eastern Washington State, U.S.A.) and teaches at Washington State University.

In this podcast Jennifer Williams speaks to our New Voices from Europe Literary Europe Live SPL Poets in Residence Juana Adcock and Árpád Kollár about writing poetry while listening to Hungarian punk music, the definition of Spanglish, how to write multi-lingual poems and much more.  This project was made possible by Literary Europe Live, Literature Across Frontiers and the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

In this podcast Jennifer Williams talks to the poet Isobel Dixon about the universal and the particular, collaboration and making space in a busy schedule to write, how to bring in the personal in poetry and much more.

Please note: unfortunately there is a buzz from a mobile signal through some short sections of this podcast. We hope it won’t detract from your enjoyment in listening. Many thanks.

Isobel Dixon was born in South Africa. She studied in Edinburgh, and now lives in Cambridge and works as a literary agent in London, returning frequently to Cape Town and her family home in the Karoo. Her fourth collection Bearings is published by Nine Arches, along with re-issues of A Fold in the Map and The Tempest Prognosticator (later in 2016). Her new pamphlet, The Leonids, is published by Mariscat. She has been published in The Paris Review, The Manhattan Review, The Guardian, The Dark Horse and Prairie Schooner, among other publications.

Many thanks to James Iremonger for the music in this podcast.

“To make art out of something painful, uncertain or damaging is an act of real empowerment” wrote Kathryn Bevis, who died in May 2024. Her first full-length poetry collection, The Butterfly House, was published two months earlier and tells the story of a life before and after a late-stage cancer diagnosis. The poems examine both life and death, encompassing experiences, terrible and sublime.

Her publishers Seren wrote in her obituary that she was "Perhaps one of the finest poets of her generation... (who) captured hearts and minds with her innovative use of form, language and metaphor to describe everyday life, experiences of women and terminal illness. She had a skill for finding light in the dark, celebration in sadness, and joy in the smallest moments."

Don Paterson described her as: " A poet of real wisdom, compassion, and fearlessness."

Sam Tongue took an immersive dive into two Kathryn Bevis poems My Cancer as a Ring-Tailed Lemur and Matryoshka. Find out what Sam - and the Friends Of The SPL group - took from these poems in our Nothing But The Poem podcast.

In this podcast, Jennifer Williams speaks to Iain Morrison about poetry and art, being able to write about sex and identity, the influence of Emily Dickinson and much more.

Iain has a frequently collaborative practice as a writer and performer, presenting within live literature and live art contexts. Recent projects have included a night of drag queen poetry at the Scottish Poetry Library in January 2016, and Subject Index a durational installation of the complete poems of Emily Dickinson developed in residency at Forest Centre+ and toured to Berlin’s SOUNDOUT! New Ways of Presenting Literature Festival in May 2014. Publishing includes work in the forthcoming collection of Edinburgh poems from Freight, poem-responses to fin de siècle Vienna in the Austrian Cultural Forum’s Kakania anthology, and writing in magazines such as Gutter, The  Burning Sand, HOAX, Soanyway and Scree.

In this goodbye podcast from Jennifer Williams, she shares her very first SPL interview, a previously unaired conversation with the American poet Eleanor Wilner. Jennifer first met Eleanor at the Scottish Poetry Library soon after she started, and Eleanor continues to be a friend and mentor for Jennifer in her life as a poet and person who believes that art can do good work in the world.

With many thanks, always, to James Iremonger for the music in this podcast.

In this podcast Jennifer Williams talks to Carrie Etter about her newest collection, Scar (Shearsman 2016), a sequence exploring the impact of climate change on her home state of Illinois which speaks to problems faced by all of us as we enter this period of environmental catastrophe. Carrie Etter is an American poet resident in Bath since 2001. Previously she lived in Normal, Illinois (until age 19) and southern California (from age 19 to 32). They also discuss the importance of introducing students to a diverse range of poetic styles and voices, trends in American and UK poetry and much more.

With poems about the internet, the suburbs and boxing, Angela Cleland is a poet whose subject matter is pleasingly diverse. A resident of London now, she was born in Inverness in 1977 and grew up in Dingwall by the Cromarty Firth. Approachable but deeply accomplished, her poems are witty, smart and distinctive. When she visited the SPL, we had to grab her for a chat, not least because her second collection Room of Thieves (Salt, 2013) is a favourite of the staff. In our latest podcast, we talk to her about writing from an early age, moving down south and writing science fiction.