Scottish Poetry Library Podcast

From the Archive: Sean Borodale. August 2012

We met up with Sean Borodale at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August 2012, where he was reading from his debut collection Bee Journal, which was subsequently shortlisted for the 2012 T S Eliot prize and Costa Book Awards.
Here Sean reads poems from Bee Journal, a remarkable account of the two years he kept a bee hive. He likens the way in which he jotted his poems down to documentary film-making rather than to traditional methods of poetry composition. Borodale also talks with Jennifer Williams about his interest in time, bees, Virgil and much more.
Image (copyright) Mark Vessey.
 

From the Archive: Tadeusz Dąbrowski. June 2013

In this podcast, Jennifer Williams talks to Polish poet, essayist, editor and critic Tadeusz Dąbrowski. They are joined by Kasia Kokowska of Interaktywny Salon Piszących w Szkocji, who came along to help with translating.
Taseusz has been the winner of numerous awards, among others, the Kościelski Prize (2009), the Hubert Burda Prize (2008) and, from Tadeusz Różewicz, the Prize of the Foundation for Polish Culture (2006). In 2013, he was the author of six volumes of poetry, and edited the anthology Poza słowa.
Tadeusz has been widely published and translated into 20 languages, and a collection of his poetry in English, Black Square, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, was published by Zephyr Press in 2011. He lives in Gdańsk and says in this interview, ‘All art is something like self-recognition.’
Photo by Harvard Review.

Nothing But The Poem - Naomi Shihab Nye

The prize-winning and former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Naomi Shihab Nye is the subject of this month’s Nothing But The Poem podcast. 
 
Known for poetry that lends a fresh perspective to ordinary events, people, and objects, Nye has said that, for her, “the primary source of poetry has always been local life, random characters met on the streets, our own ancestry sifting down to us through small essential daily tasks.” (Poetryfoundation.org)
 
Our resident podcast host Sam Tongue selected Supple Cord and Blood. Find out what Sam – and the Friends Of The SPL group – took from these poems in this Nothing But The Poem podcast.

From the Archive: Tony Lopez. February 2013

In this podcast, Jennifer Williams discusses constructivist poetry and more with award-winning poet, fiction writer, critic and professor Tony Lopez at a rather noisy 2012 Edinburgh International Book Festival.  Tony reads from his book Only More So and talks about upcoming projects.
(from Wikipedia): Tony Lopez (born 1950) is an English poet who first began to be published in the 1970s. His writing was at once recognised for its attention to language, and for his ability to compose a coherent book, rather than a number of poems accidentally printed together. He is best known for his book False Memory (The Figures, 1996), first published in the United States and much anthologised.

From the Archive: Tracey S. Rosenberg. April 2013

On 15 February 2013, Jennifer Williams and poet/author Tracey S. Rosenberg had a chat about that dreaded and unavoidable demon that every publishing writer must do battle with: rejection.  We hope this podcast will be of interest to all writers who have to deal with inevitable rejection, and especially to young and emerging writers who are starting down the challenging path towards publication. 
Music by James Iremonger. Photo by Chris Scott.

Nothing But the Poem - Ngwatilo Mawiyoo

The multidimensional Kenyan poet, filmmaker and writer Ngwatilo Mawiyoo is the subject of this month’s Nothing But The Poem podcast.
Keguro Macharia, in The New Inquiry, writes that Ngwatilo’s poetry "draws out my own memories [which] speaks to its generative power: its particularity is generous, opening ways for readers to encounter and inhabit it." Hers is a voice that insists on the personal and political being unified.
Our resident podcast host Sam Tongue selected: Found: Portrait Of Umau’s Early Days, Found: Eulogy For My Father and Night Swim. Find out what Sam – and the Friends Of The SPL group – took from these poems in this Nothing But The Poem podcast.

From the Archive: Eddie Linden. May 2013

Who was Eddie Linden (1935-2023)?
A poet, an editor, and a man with an extraordinary range of contacts and friends who ranged from Tom Leonard to Harold Pinter. Linden was a person who achieved much considering his incredibly tough childhood. Born illegitimate, he was passed from pillar to post as a boy in Glasgow. Later, he suffered much anguish when his Roman Catholicism conflicted with his sexuality. In the 1960s, after moving to London, he began an extraordinary literary magazine Aquarius, which-over 30 years-became a veritable Who’s Who of contemporary poets.
In this 2013 podcast, he discussed his life and verse from his home in Maida Vale.
Image by Mazengarb

From the Archive: George Szirtes. March 2013

Born in Budapest and brought up in England after coming to the UK as a refugee in 1956, George Szirtes has remained one of the country’s most interesting poets since his first prize-winning collection, The Slant Door, was published in 1979. That wasn’t the last trophy he was to take home; he won the T S Eliot Prize for his 2005 collection Reel.
The SPL caught up with Szirtes at the StAnza poetry festival in March, 2013. In town to read from his collection Bad Machine (Bloodaxe), he spoke to Colin Waters about memory, photography, Twitter and 1960s garage pop.
Photo by Caroline Forbes.

From the Archive: Marianne Boruch. January 2013

Good poetry gets beneath the skin of readers. This episode features a poet who, for a short period, literally got ‘under the skin’.
In the autumn of 2008, poet and essayist Marianne Boruch was awarded a ‘Faculty Fellowship in a Second Discipline’, permitting her to study something new for a semester. Her choice? Anatomy classes. ‘Cadaver, Speak’, a long poem, was her response to her time dissecting bodies, and in this 2013 podcast, she talks about her experiences in an interview conducted in the Edinburgh University Medical School’s historical lecture theatre.

From the Archive: Liz Lochhead 40th Anniversary of Memo for Spring. September 2012

In 1972, Liz Lochhead published her debut collection, Memo For Spring, a landmark in Scottish literature. In an extended interview with Colin Waters, the then Scots Makar discusses what the early 1970s poetry scene she emerged into was like, one in which women poets were few and far between. She recalls early meetings with the elder generation – Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan, Robert Garioch – and with contemporaries such as Tom Leonard, James Kelman and Alasdair Gray. She also speaks about life during the era of the three-day week and compares it with an economically troubled present-day that, in some respects, mirrors 1972. And she reads several poems from Memo For Spring.
Photo by Norman McBeath.