Scottish Poetry Library Podcast

From the Archive: Ian Bell on Bob Dylan. December 2013

Bob Dylan has played many roles in his life: voice of a generation, rock ‘n’ roll Judas, Christian convert, even Victoria’s Secret salesman. The one that concerned the SPL podcast in 2013 was ‘poet’.
Across two biographies – Once Upon A Time and Time Out of Mind (both Mainstream) – Ian Bell (1956-2015) considered Dylan in a more literary context than any other biographer of His Bobness. Over the course of this podcast, we discussed whether Dylan can really be considered a poet, the writers who influenced him, his Scottish connection, and his encounters with poets such as Carl Sandburg, Archibald McLeish and Allen Ginsberg.
Image: Bob Dylan, Paris, France 1966 by Paul Townsend, under a Creative Commons licence.

Wild Writing talk to the SPL

Lorna Fleming and Anna Gray lead small groups of (mostly) women to let loose their wild side, to dive in to their unconscious and find their buried treasure. Wild Writers are creatives, public sector workers, teenagers, or any other type of human who is boldly, and often messily, transforming on their hero’s or heroine’s journey.
Ahead of their workshops at the SPL in April and May 2025, Kevin Williamson chats to Lorna and Anna about what they mean by 'wild writing', and how this can help stimulate a different, more unconscious or free way in to workshop writing.
Tickets for the SPL Wild Writing workshops are available here.
Other Wild Writing courses can be found here.

From the Archive: Best Scottish Poems 2012

Best Scottish Poems is the Scottish Poetry Library’s annual online anthology of the 20 Best Scottish Poems, edited each year by a different editor. Bookshops and libraries – with honourable exceptions – often provide a very narrow range of poetry, and Scottish poetry in particular. Best Scottish Poems offers readers in Scotland and abroad a way of sampling the range and achievement of our poets, their languages, forms, concerns.
It is in no sense a competition but a personal choice, and this year’s editors, the novelists Louise Welsh and Zoë Strachan, checked and balanced each other’s predilections. Their introduction demonstrates how widely they read, and how intensely. All the Best Scottish Poems selections are available on the SPL website.
This special podcast features readings by established voices and emerging talent. With readings by Kathleen Jamie, Liz Lochhead, Robin Robertson, John Burnside, and many more. 
Photo by Jen Hadfield.

From the Archive: MacGillivray. February 2014

In this podcast the poet and artist MacGillivray reads from and discusses her book, The Last Wolf of Scotland (Pighog).
The collection is an exploration of connections between Scotland and the American Frontier whose form brilliantly reflects the subject matter of the poems. MacGillivray joins Jennifer Williams in a conversation that maps the rich web of influences from which her poetry emerges, taking in Doors front-man Jim Morrison, mock ancient Scottish bard Ossian, and the mysterious ‘Man with Fourteen Lives’. Plus a debate about whether poetry works better on the page or read aloud, or memorised and recited.

From the Archive: Kae (Kate)Tempest. September 2013

In this 2013 podcast, Jennifer Williams talks to poet, playwright and recording artist Kate Tempest* about hip hop, poetry, their play Brand New Ancients, mythology, world peace and much more. Kate has written plays for Paines Plough and the Battersea Arts Centre, written poetry for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Channel 4 and the BBC, worked in schools and won the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2012, for Brand New Ancients. 
*In 2020 the musician and poet formerly named Kate Tempest changed their name to Kae Tempest, and announced they are non-binary. In the announcement on Instagram, Tempest said they were changing the pronouns they use, from she and her to they and them.
Image © Melanie Flash

From the Archive: Jenny Lindsay. August 2014

Jenny Lindsay was co-creator of the popular ‘poetry cabaret’ Rally and Broad (which ran from 2012-2016), a hit originally in Edinburgh that spread its wings to Glasgow. In this 2014 podcast, we talked to Jenny about her poetry and the lively spoken word scene in Scotland.
Photo by Alex Aitchison.

Nothing But The Poem - RS Thomas

The famous Welsh poet RS Thomas is the subject of this month's Nothing But The Poem podcast.
Anne Stevenson of the Listener describes Thomas as a religious poet who 'sees tragedy, not pathos, in the human condition' ... 'He is one of the rare poets writing today who never asks for pity.'
'Like the Welsh countryside he writes about, Thomas's poetry is often harsh and austere, written in plain, somber language, with a meditative quality.' - The Poetry Foundation 
Our resident podcast host Sam Tongue took an immersive dive into two RS Thomas poems: From The Farm  and Reservoirs. 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: Chrys Salt.April 2015

Poet Chrys Salt talks about who has the right to write about certain subjects, about writing war poetry when you have a son who is a soldier, and how poetry can benefit from a good performance.
Thanks to James Iremonger for the music in this podcast.

From the Archive: Brian Johnstone. August 2010

Brian Johnstone (1950 - 2021) was a poet and former director of the StAnza poetry festival. In this archive podcast he discusses the highlights of his StAnza career, what he thinks makes a good poetry festival, his own work and his creative improvisations as part of jazz-poetry combo Trio Verso. Featuring the tracks ‘Storm Chaser’ and ‘The Sound of Breaking Glass’.
Presented by Ryan Van Winkle. Produced by Colin Fraser. Incidental music by Ewen Maclean.

From the Archive: Alexander Hutchison. March 2014

Alexander Hutchison (1942-2015) was a poet and translator in Scots and English. His first book Deep-Tap Tree (University of Massachusetts Press, 1978) is still in print. Other collections include The Moon Calf (Galliard, 1990) and Carbon Atom (Link-Light, 2006). Melodic Cells, an interview with Hutchison conducted by Andrew Duncan appears in Don’t Start Me Talking: Interviews with Contemporary Poets (Salt: Cambridge, 2006). Salt also published Scales Dog: New and Selected Poems in 2007. In this podcast former SPL Programme Manager Jennifer Williams talks to Alexander about his then most recent collection, Bones & Breath (Salt), tardigrades, ancient spears, the poet’s voice and much more!