Scottish Poetry Library Podcast

Over 250 years ago, Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair (Alexander MacDonald) wrote The Birlinn of Clanranald (Kettillonia, £5), an epic poem in Gaelic describing the troubled voyage of a galley from South Uist to Northern Ireland. Scotland itself was going through a stormy period post-Culloden, which the author, as a Jacobite sympathizer, knew fine well. Poet and Professor of Scottish literature Alan Riach has recently published an English-language version of The Birlinn of Clanranald, and he came into the Library to discuss it. Over 30 minutes he talks about translating from Gaelic when you're not fluent in the language, the author's dangerous times, and why the climatic storm sequence is reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft.

In this podcast, Jennifer Williams meets Nora Gomringer just after her Poetry Centre Stage reading at Scotland’s International Poetry Festival StAnza 2016. They talk about poetry on TV, how poetry can and should include a multiplicity tones and registers, the joy of bringing poetry alive through the body and much more. This podcast was recorded in cooperation with Scotland’s International Poetry Festival StAnza 2016 and with Literature Across Frontiers as part of the Literary Europe Live project supported by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union. Nora Gomringer was born in 1980. Her background is in page-related poetry and spoken word, her present is the vast variety of poetry and recitation. For her work, she has received numerous bursaries and awards. Recently, she and the musician Philipp Scholz received the renowned Villa Kowagama Residency bursary in Kyoto for the autumn of 2016. In 2015 she was awarded the prestigious German literary award, the Ingeborg Bachmann prize. Since 2010 she

Best Scottish Poems is an online selection of twenty of the best poems by Scottish authors to appear in books, pamphlets and literary magazines during 2015. The latest edition was guest edited by novelist and poet Ken MacLeod. Our latest podcast features the poets who appear in the anthology reading their work. Includes Kathleen Jamie, Ryan Van Winkle, Ron Butlin, Christine De Luca, JL Williams and many, many more. Image by Helen Douglas.

In this podcast, Jennifer Williams talks to Sophie Collins about experimenting with starting points for creating poems, including using online translators and working with the unconscious; feminism and her role as co-editor of Tender (http://www.tenderjournal.co.uk/abouttender), a journal celebrating writing by women and the wide-ranging world of poetry translation from radical to faithful; and much more! Sophie Collins is co-editor of online quarterly tender, and editor of translation anthology Currently & Emotion (Test Centre, 2016). She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2014. Her first collection will be published by Penguin in 2017. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/sophie-collins

In our latest podcast, the editors of The Midnight Letterbox: Selected Correspondence 1950 - 2010 talk about how they put together a volume of Edwin Morgan's letters. James McGonigal and John Coyle discuss the variety of letters the Makar or National Poet for Scotland wrote. As a bonus, James McGonigal talks about and reads from his new collection The Camphill Wrens (Red Squirrel).

Season 1 of The Link Break comes to an end and our special guest is Paula Meehan, an Irish poet and playwright. Paula’s work is much translated and celebrated; among the prizes she has won are The Martin Toonder Award (1995), the Butler Literary Award (1998) and the Denis Devlin Award (2002). In this episode Paula speaks generously about her childhood, her Catholic upbringing, witnessing ‘living’ history in Ireland, and the role of private speech in the public domain. There’s more poetry sparks too, as Ryan considers all the beds he’s ever slept in (and so will you). Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. http://campus.poetryschool.com

In this podcast, Jennifer Williams speaks to American poet Linda Russo about the complexities of writing a poetry of place, the challenges and rewards of creating with empathy, and the question, ‘why aren’t we giving up hope?’. Linda Russo is the author of two books of poetry, Mirth(Chax Press) and Meaning to Go to the Origin in Some Way, and a collection of literary-geographical essays, To Think of her Writing Awash in Light, selected by John D’Agata as winner of the Subito Press lyric essay prize.Participant, winner of the Bessmilr Brigham Poets Prize (Lost Roads Press), is forthcoming. Scholarly essays have appeared in Among Friends: Engendering the Social Site of Poetry (University of Iowa Press) and other edited collections, and as the preface of Joanne Kyger's About Now: Collected Poems (National Poetry Foundation). She lives in the Columbia River Watershed (eastern Washington State, U.S.A.) and teaches at Washington State University.

Ken MacLeod is a novelist, poet and the editor of the SPL's online anthology Best Scottish Poems 2015. We caught up with Ken last year to talk about the slim volume he'd just published, Poems, a collaboration with his friend, fellow Scot and poet/novelist Iain Banks. Banks, who died in 2013, has suggested co-publishing their poetry before his death, but the book's appearance took on a new significance when it became clear it was going to be his last one. Ken discusses Poems' genesis, the poets who turned him and the young Banks onto poetry, and the limericks that gave him the courage to take on T.S. Eliot with a poem that talks back to The Waste Land.

This month, Ryan talks to the Australian poet, Ouyang Yu. Born in China, Yu is a controversial figure within Australian literature, often exploring the dilemmas of transnational artists caught between different literary, cultural and linguistic traditions in a raw, uncompromising style that he has made his own (Yu himself refers to the ‘polished’ poem as “an arse wiped clean”). In this interview, Ryan and Ouyang discuss language barriers, mis-prints and the importance of making 'creative mistakes'. Plus, more poetry sparks! Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. http://campus.poetryschool.com Produced by Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser

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, Hamish Henderson’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 recently retired after working in education for 30 years and is now a full-time writer. He is a founder member of St Mungo’s Mirrorball, Glasgow’s network of poets and lovers of poetry, and was a participant on Mirrorball’sClydebuilt mentoring scheme (2009-10) under the tutelage of Liz Lochhead. His sequence, Visiting Winter: A Johannesburg Quintet, originally published in Gutter 06, was chosen for the Scottish Poetry Library’s online anthology Best Scott

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, sh, e 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.

Award-winning poet, essayist, and translator Jane Hirshfield is our guest this week. Jane reads from her work, and shares the body, heart and mind that informs her deceptively clear, attentive poetry, asking why 'how happy we are, how unhappy we are, doesn't matter'. And Ryan offers some more 'poetry sparks' to nourish your own ideas. Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. http://campus.poetryschool.com Produced by Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser

In this podcast, which was recorded in 2014, Kevin Cadwallender talks to Jennifer Williams about the performance poetry/page poetry debate, his religious beliefs (or lack thereof), how family and architecture inform his poetry and fast writing-slow thinking. http://cadwallenderkevin.blogspot.co.uk/ Kevin Cadwallender lives in Edinburgh. He has published nine full collections of poetry and 24 pamphlets including; Baz Poems (Rebel Inc), Public (Iron Press), Rewiring Houdini (Bee Books), Dances With Vowels : New and Selected poems (Smokestack Books), Dog Latin (Calderwood Press) andColouring in Guernica (RSP) He is a Commissioning Editor for Red Squirrel Press, Lectures in Modern Poetry and was Scottish National Slam Champion 2012-2013. His BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Voyages’ was shortlisted for a Sony Radio Award and the book of that programme for a Raymond Williams Community Publishing Award. Kevin Cadwallender's latest collection is Making Buildings out of Gods & Glue (RSP, 2013). He runs '10RED', an eclecti

We're starting the New Year on a high. This month, The Line Break listens in on the wonderful Mark Doty, poet and author of Deep Lane, recently nominated for the T S Eliot Prize. And back with two more poetry sparks, Ryan has you writing transcendentally about the mundane, and exploring the things you shouldn't say. Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. http://campus.poetryschool.com Produced by Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser

Our former podcaster Ryan Van Winkle returns to talk about his award-winning second collection The Good Dark (Penned in the Margins). A collection that has its origins in heartbreak, Ryan talks about his struggle to rise above an adolescent tone. He explains why despite his extensive travels abroad, his poetry never touches on his destinations. And why Snoopy is an unexpected literary influence.

Is there joy in sorrow? Can tragedy ever be funny? This month, our guest is Caroline Bird, a poet who delights in troubling sensibilities and leading her audience down the garden path before swiftly turning the hose on them. Where other poets might tell it like it is, Ryan and Caroline explore how the most meaningful poems can often be found at the far corners of things, and how poetry finds truth in a world of ‘no facts’ and ‘not saying’. Plus, more poetry sparks from Ryan! So lean in, listener, but be careful – there’s a fist aimed at your heart. Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. http://campus.poetryschool.com Produced by Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser

It has been some time since this podcast was recorded with one of our Commonwealth Poets United visitors, Tolu Ogunlesi, however it feels like just the right time to release it as Tolu speaks so beautifully about how poetry platforms on the internet and new technologies such as email allowed him to become part of a global community of poets. In a time when the world feels fragile and where notions of borders and ownership seem fraught with complexities and power struggle, it is a relief to hear a poet speaking of poetry as a connecting force in his life, as a passport to new landscapes and ideas. Tolu Ogunlesi is a journalist, poet, fiction-writer and photographer who lives in Lagos, Nigeria. His poetry collection Listen to the geckos singing from a balcony was published in 2004, and his work has been widely published in magazines and anthologies. https://toluogunlesi.wordpress.com/ Many thanks to James Iremonger for the music in this podcast: https://jamesiremonger.wordpress.com/tabla/

Come with us to the merry month of August, when all is bright, light and carnivalesque in Edinburgh. Yes, it's Festival time, and poetry is at the heart of the Scottish capital's various festivals. The SPL podcast team were there to capture the best of the fests, and they're all here in this podcast: Alan Spence, Loud Poets, Rachel McCrum, Juana Adcock, McGuire, Andy Jackson, Harry Giles and Sam Small.

The power of poetry comes partly from its ability to explode a language when it no longer feels adequate enough to explain the extraordinary times we live in. This month on The Line Break, Ryan talks to the Singapore-born poet, editor and translator - Alvin Pang - about multiculturalism and poetry as a force of resistance: against public expectations, political oppression and cultural efficiencies, as well as our own longings, ambivalences, lost hopes, fears and anxieties. Alvin recites a few of his extraordinary poems, and Ryan sets two more poetry sparks for you all to try out: writing family, and lashing out against bullies, bosses, and dictators. Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. http://campus.poetryschool.com Produced by Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser

This month's guest is Hilary Menos, farmer, poet and winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2010 for 'Berg'. Her most recent collection is 'Red Devon', which draws from her experience living in the Devonshire Domesday Manor which is now her home. In this interview, Hilary shares some of the crowdpleasing 'bankers' from her poetry set, writing poems in a slaughterhouse, and Ryan grills Hilary on her Superman knowledge. Plus - more sparks from Ryan. Produced by Culture Laser productions @culturelaser.