Scottish Poetry Library Podcast

Last year, the publisher Freight put out an anthology called Umbrellas of Edinburgh. This collection of new work brought together poems all about Scotland’s capital. Co-edited by Claire Askew and Russell Jones, Umbrellas of Edinburgh is a poetic map of the city, from the centre and Princess Street, to the rim of the city and areas like Wester Hailes. There are also, as you’ll hear, poems about Edinburgh’s monuments and landmarks. Many of the poets you’ll hear have appeared on previous SPL podcasts, writers such as Harry Giles, Christine De Luca and Ryan Van Winkle. Many may be new to you. There’s even a poem about the Scottish Poetry Library waiting for you at the end of the podcast. Image: Umbrellas Near London Bridge by C., under a Creative Commons licence

JL Williams (also known as one of our former podcast hosts, Jennifer WIlliams) recently published a new collection After Economy (Shearsman), inspired by nanotechnology and a vision of a post-capitalist society. In May, she launched the book at Edinburgh's Talbot Rice Gallery, accompanied by cellist Atzi Muramatsu. In the latest episode of the SPL's podcast series, we include excerpts of Williams' and Muramatsu's performance, plus Williams talks about the inspiration behind After Economy.

With warm words on the back of his latest collection from Douglas Dunn and Les Murray, Jim Carruth comes highly recommended. Scotland's leading living poet of its rural experience, Carruth grew up on a family farm near Kilbarchan. His first collection Bovine Pastoral was published in 2004, since when he has brought out a further five collections, the latest of which is Black Cart (Freight, 2016). In 2010 he was chosen as one of the poets showcased in Oxford Poets 2010. In 2014 he was appointed Poet Laureate of Glasgow. He's also one of the founders of St Mungo’s Mirrorball, which is responsible for one of Glasgow's best poetry nights and for pairing emerging poets with experienced poets for a year's mentorship. In our latest podcast, Carruth discusses Scotland and the rural experience, mental health in the countryside, and not taking over the family farm.

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.

In September 2016, the SPL, the British Council and Edwin Morgan Trust, took three Scottish poets – Stewart Sanderson, Christine De Luca and Jen Hadfield – to Russia as part of celebrations of the the UK-Russia Year of Language and Literature 2016 and the global Shakespeare Lives programme commemorating the 400th anniversary of his death. While there, they worked with three Russian poets – Marina Boroditskaya, Grigorii Kruzhkov and Lev Oborin – on translations of each other’s work. In March 2017, the second leg of the exchange took the Russian poets to Scotland for a series of readings across the country. While in Edinburgh they spoke with their Scottish counterparts about translation, Shakespeare, living in a capital city.

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.

‘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'.

Andrew McMillan is the author of Physical (published by Jonathan Cape), which won the Guardian First Book Award, the first time a collection of poetry won the prize. He was born in 1988 and grew up in a small village outside Barnsley in south Yorkshire, studying English at Lancaster and University College London before becoming a lecturer in creative writing at Liverpool John Moores University. He visited the SPL in August of 2016 while up in Edinburgh for the EIBF. During the course of the interview he talks about the one thing he tries to instill in his creative writing students, the criminal neglect of poet Thom Gunn, and why there are so few poems about going to the gym. Image: Urszula Sołtys

In this goodbye podcast from Jennifer Williams, she shares her very first SPL interview 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 (www.jlwilliamspoetry.co.uk) and person who believes that art can do good work in the world. Jennifer would like to say a huge thank you to all the listeners out there who have tuned in all these years. Eleanor Wilner: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/eleanor-wilner With many thanks, always, to James Iremonger for the music in this podcast: https://jamesiremonger.wordpress.com/tabla/

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: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/loud-poets-xmas-special-tickets-27026741712

In this podcast Jennifer Williams speaks to our New Voices from Europe Literary Europe Live SPL Poets in Residence Juana Adcock and Árpád Kollár about writing poetry while listening to Hungarian punk music, the definition of Spanglish, how to write multi-lingual poems and much more. This project was made possible by Literary Europe Live, Literature Across Frontiers and the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. http://www.lit-across-frontiers.org/profiles/arpad-kollar/ http://www.lit-across-frontiers.org/profiles/juana-adcock/ With many thanks to James Iremonger for the music in this podcast: https://jamesiremonger.wordpress.com/tabla/

In this podcast Jennifer Williams talks to the poet Isobel Dixon about the universal and the particular, collaboration and making space in a busy schedule to write, how to bring in the personal in poetry and much more. Please note: unfortunately there is a buzz from a mobile signal through some short sections of this podcast. We have edited it out where possible, but could not take it out altogether, and we didn’t want to lose too much of Isobel’s interview. We hope it won’t detract from your enjoyment in listening. Many thanks. Many thanks to James Iremonger for the music in this podcast.

Helen Mort is one of the UK's most exciting young voices. She came into the SPL to talk about her second book No Maps Could Show Them (Chatto & Windus) and to read poems from the collection. During the course of the interview, she talks about female pioneers of mountaineering, the strange health risks men believed running posed women, and the historical characters she's drawn to writing about.

In this podcast, the poet Sarah Howe talks to Jennifer Williams about kicking off the 2016 Edinburgh International Book Festival, writing with multiple languages and alphabets, sense and non-sense in poetry and much more. http://sarahhowepoetry.com/home.html Sarah Howe is a British poet, academic and editor. Her first book, Loop of Jade (Chatto & Windus, 2015), won the T.S. Eliot Prize and The Sunday Times / PFD Young Writer of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Born in Hong Kong in 1983 to an English father and Chinese mother, she moved to England as a child. Her pamphlet, A Certain Chinese Encyclopedia (Tall-lighthouse, 2009), won an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors. Her poems have appeared in journals including Poetry Review, Poetry London, The Guardian, The Financial Times, Ploughshares and Poetry, as well as anthologies such as Ten: The New Wave and four editions of The Best British Poetry. S

Two poets, one podcast. Krystelle Bamford and Don Paterson are reading together at the Scottish Poetry Library at an event we’re holding on Wednesday 23 November, 6pm. Tickets are £7 (£5). Bamford was born in the US but has been living in Edinburgh for over five years now. She completed an MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews and has been published in The American Poetry Review and The Kenyon Review, and she has also won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award. Two-time winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, Don Paterson more than deserves his reputation as one of Britain's foremost poets. His latest collection is 40 Sonnets (Faber). He hails from Dundee, and is living in Edinburgh these days. Both poets came into the SPL in July where we spoke about translations, sonnets and what sort of a character makes for a good poem.

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. https://permanentpositions.wordpress.com/tag/iain-morrison-poetry/

Claire Askew is the author of an acclaimed debut, This Changes Things (Bloodaxe), and has been shortlisted for the 2016 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Her poetry challenges its readers to consider the position from which they interpret it. She isn't content to merely point the finger; her work proceeds from an ongoing questioning of her own background and what it might blind her to. In our latest podcast, Askew discusses privilege, the danger of appropriating the experience of others, and why she's so drawn to writing poems about her grandparents.

In this podcast Jennifer Williams talks to Illinois-born, Bath-based poet 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. 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. http://carrieetter.blogspot.co.uk/ http://www.shearsman.com/ws-shop/category/1096-etter-carrie https://www.serenbooks.com/author/carrie-etter Carrie Etter is an American poet resident in England since 2001. Previously she lived in Normal, Illinois (until age 19) and southern California (from age 19 to 32). In the UK, her poems have appeared in, amongst others, New Welsh Review, Poetry Wales, Poetry Review, PN Review, Shearsman, Stand and TLS, while in the US her poems have appeared in magazines such as Aufgabe, Columbia, Court Green, The Iow

Among the younger generation of Scottish poets, Harry Giles stands out. Shortlisted for the Edward Morgan Poetry Award and the Forward Prize for Best Debut Collection, Giles is clearly going places. Last year saw the publication of the narrative verse sequence Drone in Our Real Red Selves (Vagabond Voices) and his full collection Tonguit (Freight Books). It seemed a good time to catch up with the poet and activist. We spoke to him about politics, a messy take on the Scots language, and the time the Daily Mail called him 'vile'.

In this podcast Jennifer Williams speaks to Jamaican-born, American-based poet Shara McCallum about her new Robert Burns poetry project which brought her to Scotland for a research visit; the lyric self; female and minority voices in poetry and much more. With thanks to James Iremonger for the music in this podcast. https://jamesiremonger.wordpress.com/tabla/ SHARA MCCALLUM http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/shara-mccallum Originally from Jamaica, Shara McCallum is the author of five books of poetry: Madwoman (forthcoming fall 2016, Alice James Books, US; spring 2017, Peepal Tree Press, UK); The Face of Water: New and Selected Poems (Peepal Tree Press, UK, 2011); This Strange Land (Alice James Books, US, 2011), a finalist for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature; Song of Thieves (University of Pittsburgh Press, US, 2003); and The Water Between Us (University of Pittsburgh Press, US, 1999), winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize for Poetry. Recognition for her work