Scottish Poetry Library Podcast

Iain Morrison

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.

Eleanor Wilner

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.
If you would prefer to read, rather than listen to, our podcast with Eleanor Wilner, click here to see a transcript of the interview.

Carrie Etter

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.

Angela Cleland

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.

Vicki Husband

Vicki Husband is one of the most interesting Scottish poets to have emerged in the past year. 2016 saw the publication of her debut This Far Back Everything Shimmers (Vagabond Voices), which was shortlisted for the Saltire Society’s Scottish Poetry Book of the Year Award, where she found herself shortlisted alongside Kathleen Jamie and Don Paterson. Her poems mix science and the everyday, finding the cosmic in the quotidian and vice versa. She talks to the SPL about using bees to diagnose illness, her mentor, the late Alexander Hutchison, and why there are so many animals in her poems.
Buy This Far Back Everything Shimmers from the SPL shop.

Vahni Capildeo

‘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

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

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. 

Stewart Conn

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.

Sean O’Brien

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.