Scottish Poetry Library Podcast

‘I write because I must,’ says Vahni Capildeo, winner of the 2016 Forward Prize for Best Collection for Measures of Expatriation (published by Carcanet). ‘I think poetry,’ she says, ‘is a natural expression of humanity that has not been brutalized – which is able to take time and concentrate.’
In this podcast, Capildeo discusses the impact studying Old Norse at university had on her poetry, how women’s voices are silenced, and why she objects to the word ‘migrant’.

Tolu Agbelusi is a Nigerian British, poet, playwright, performer, educator and lawyer. Her work ‘addresses the unperformed self, womanhood and the art of living’. For our latest podcast, Suzannah V. Evans interviewed Agbelusi at StAnza, Scotland’s poetry festival, earlier this year. Agbelusi talks about building communities and empowering people through literature; she is the founder of Home Sessions, a development program and community for Black poets under 30.

Tishani Doshi’s third collection Girls are Coming Out of the Woods is one of the great collections of 2018. In August, while appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Doshi visited the SPL where she spoke about the new collection. On the podcast, she discusses writing poems that address violence against women during the MeToo era, how comfortable she is to describe herself as a poet, and why Patrick Swayze is worthy of an ode. 

Over a decade has passed since Stewart Conn was Edinburgh’s Makar or Poet Laureate, yet the city continues to exert its influence upon him. His latest collection Aspects of Edinburgh maps the city as well as his fascination with its buildings, history and people.
Conn was born in 1936, growing up mainly in Kilmarnock, where his father was a minister. He worked at the BBC from 1962, mainly as a radio drama producer, becoming Head of Radio Drama, until he resigned in 1992. Publications include An Ear to the Ground (Poetry Book Society Choice); Stolen Light (shortlisted for the Saltire Prize), The Breakfast Room (2011 Scottish Poetry Book of the Year) and a new and selected volume The Touch of Time (Bloodaxe).
In our latest podcast, Conn discusses his collaboration with illustrator John Knight, and how he was initially wary of writing about the capital because he isn’t a native.

As the age of Brexit continues to bear down on Britain, Sean O’Brien returns with a collection called Europa(Picador). One of only two poets to win the Forward and T.S. Eliot Prizes for the same collection (The Drowned Book in 2007), O’Brien talks to the SPL about fascism, leaving Europe (and whether it’s actually even possible) and liking bands long after they’ve passed they sell-by date.

Penny Boxall is the winner of the 2016 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award and the 2018 Mslexia / Poetry Book Society Poetry Competition. She’s the author of two collections, Ship of the Line and Who Goes There?, both published by Valley Press.
She was born in 1987 and grew up in Aberdeenshire and Yorkshire. We spoke earlier this year and at the time of the interview she was Development Manager at Shandy Hall, Laurence Sterne’s house in the North York Moors.
Jackie Kay, who was one of the judges the year Boxall won, said of her poetry: ‘Penny Boxall runs a tight ship. Her poems are beautifully crafted. Reading her is to go on an interesting journey of exploration—stopping at fascinating places along the way. She has a curator’s mind and is always putting one thing beside another in an unexpected way.’

To coincide with Niall O’Gallagher’s appointment as Bàrd Baile Ghlaschu, Glasgow’s Gaelic poet laureate, we present an interview with O’Gallagher. His first book of poems, Beatha Ùr (Clàr), was published in 2013. Beatha Ùr continued Gaelic poetry’s long-running engagement with Scotland’s largest city. O’Gallagher’s second collection, Suain nan Trì Latha (2016), made this explicit in a series of poems, many addressed to the poet’s infant son, echoing classical Gaelic love lyrics. Although he’s translated other’s poetry from Gaelic to English, O’Gallagher has declined to translate his own poetry, preferring to rely on others, like Deborah Moffat and Peter Mackay, to produce English versions of his poems. During the podcast he talks about why he refuses to translate his own work, why Glasgow has always been a linguistic hub for Gaelic poetry, and what he plans to do as Bàrd Baile Ghlaschu.

This month Suzannah V Evans takes over as host; she’s in conversation with Mary Jean Chan in an interview recorded at StAnza, Scotland’s poetry festival, earlier this year.
Chan was born in 1990 and raised in Hong Kong before continuing her education at the Universities of Oxford and London. She’s already been nominated for the Forward Prize for Poetry’s Best Single Poem category twice and earlier this year she won an Eric Gregory Award. Her first full-length collection Flèche has just been published by Faber.
During the podcast, Chan discusses fencing (where the term ‘flèche’ comes from), how learning English at a young age made her realise some languages are more valued than others, and queerness.

Since forming in 2014, the Loud Poets have been wowing festival audiences from Edinburgh to Prague with their live shows. Comprised of Kevin Mclean, Catherine Wilson, Doug Garry, and Katie Ailes, plus musicians, plus a large number of ‘reserve members’, the Loud Poets have attracted a lively and loyal following.
In the SPL’s latest podcast, we ask the Loud Poets about their ‘origin story’, making space for their brand of spoken word, and what they plan to do at the special Christmas show they’re putting on here at the SPL.
That’s right. The Loud Poets will be performing at the SPL on Wednesday 7 December, 6pm (with tickets £7 pr £5 concessions). Figgy pudding not supplied. Tickets can be bought here.
If you would prefer to read, rather than listen to, our podcast with The Loud Poets, click here to see a transcript of the interview.

Liz Berry was born in the Black Country which gave her first collection its title. Black Country won a chorus of praise, not to mention a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, a Somerset Maugham Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award and Forward Prize for Best First Collection. The collection is characterised by poems written in the Black Country dialect.
Her recent pamphlet The Republic of Motherhood was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet choice and was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award, while its title poem won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2018.  Recorded at the StAnza Poetry Festival in St Andrews, Berry talks about the lack of poetry that tells the truth about the experience of childbirth and rearing, the Black Country accent and pigeons.