Scottish Poetry Library Podcast

Nothing But the Poem : Will Harris

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. 

Nothing But The Poem: Hannah Hodgson

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. 

Christian McEwen

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.

Christine De Luca

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.

William Letford

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.

Alice Notley

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

John Burnside on W.S. Graham

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’.

Beverley Bie Brahic

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

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.

William Bonar

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.