Scottish Poetry Library Podcast

In this podcast guest interviewer and multi-lingual writer and translator Jessica Johannesson Gaitán talks to 3 bilingual poets about what it means to have more than one mother tongue, feeling guilty or not about writing in big languages, translating one’s own poetry and much more! Featuring: Juana Adcock is a poet and translator working in English and Spanish. Her work has appeared in publications such as Magma Poetry, Gutter, Glasgow Review of Books,Asymptote and Words Without Borders. Her first book, Manca, explores the anatomy of violence in Mexico and was named by Reforma‘s distinguished critic Sergio González Rodríguez as one of the best poetry books published in 2014. http://jennivora.com/ Ioannis Kalkounos was born in Greece. He works at the Edinburgh City Libraries. In 2012 he read two short stories at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (Story Shop). His first collection of poems, dakryma, was published in 2011 (Athens, Dromon Publications). Agnes Török is a spoken word performer, poetr

Edinburgh's Makar, or poet laureate, Christine De Luca wasn't born in the capital. In our latest 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.

For our third episode, Ryan talks to the American poet Mary Ruefle about finding the joy in the solitary act of writing poetry, the need to talk to yourself, and we hear Mary read from a selection of her incredibly distinctive work. And there’s more poetry sparks for you to try out, re-working found text with Tippex, and getting lost in language. Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. This episode is produced by Culture Laser Productions @culturelaser with thanks to the Scottish Poetry Library for their support.

In this podcast Jennifer Williams talks to New Zealand poet John Dennison about his new book Otherwise (Carcanet, 2015). They discuss the poem as microeconomy, what it means to be human, where God fits in to modern poetry and much more. This podcast was recorded at and in association with StAnza International Poetry Festival 2015. http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?owner_id=995 John Dennison was born in Sydney in 1978. He grew up in Tawa, New Zealand and studied English literature at Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Otago. Having recently completed a PhD at the University of St Andrews, he now lives with his family in Wellington. Music by James Iremonger (https://jamesiremonger.wordpress.com/tabla/).

Sheena Blackhall is a poet, novelist, short story writer, illustrator, traditional story teller and singer who is the author, as the podcast explores, of over 100 poetry pamphlets. In 2009, she was made Aberdeen’s Makar or poet laureate you might put it. She writes in English, Scots and Doric. As a child and native speaker of Doric she faced the same prejudices and challenges that speakers of minority languages around the world have faced. In this podcast, Sheena talks about her love of Aberdeen, the worse place she’s ever written a poem and why she’s written so many pamphlets.

This month on The Line Break, Ryan re-visits an interview with poet and journalist Kwame Dawes and discusses the challenges of writing poetry about often painful world events, and how to find beauty, happiness and truth in the 'cesspools of experience' that follow. And Ryan sets out more of his 'poetry sparks', including how to write a blues poem. 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 This episode is produced by Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser with thanks to the Scottish Poetry Library for their support.

Our programme manager, Jennifer Williams – aka poet JL Williams (www.jlwilliamspoetry.co.uk) – had a fabulous adventure recently when she was invited to read at the 5th International Eskişehir Poetry Festival ((http://www.tepebasi.bel.tr/siir/)) in Turkey. In this podcast she shares an interview with the poet Nurduran Duman, as well as a soundscape of readings, interviews and music recorded along the way. We hope it will give you a taste of not only the extraordinary festival organised by Haydar Ergülen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haydar_Erg%C3%BClen) which featured international guests and Turkish poets, but also some of the delights of the very vibrant contemporary poetry scene in Turkey.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of William Butler Yeats, the extraordinary Irish poet. His work reflects and sometimes opposes changes in the the poetry of his times. His life was large enough to encompass the remarkable changes Ireland underwent during his life and one of literature's most famous unrequited love affairs. In a podcast marking the 150th anniversary of his birth, the SPL invited a number of poets to read and reflect on their favourite Yeats poem. Recorded in March at St Andrews StAnza poetry festival, our podcast features Kei Miller, Ryan Van Winkle, Carolyn Forché, Jim Carruth, Alexander Hutchison, Anne Crowe and many more.

The Poetry School welcomes you to a new poetry podcast, our very first (be gentle). For our pilot outing, host Ryan Van Winkle re-visits his 2013 Scottish Poetry Library podcast interview with TS Eliot-prize winner, Philip Gross, ranging across making up names for colours, comparing the similarities of poetry and making scones, and asking what happens in the thought vortex of ‘What if? And then?’ Listeners can also join The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets http://campus.poetryschool.com. This episode is produced by Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com with thanks to the Scottish Poetry Library for their support.

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. Alice Notley has published over thirty books of poetry, including (most recently) Songs and Stories of the Ghouls, Negativity’s Kiss, and the chapbookSecret I D. 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. (https://jamesiremonger.wordpress.com/tabla/)

Poet, novelist and essayist Blake Morrison published a pamphlet last year, This Poem. A sequence of poems that take as their theme current events, the pamphlet tackles Jimmy Saville, phone hacking and the coalition government. But are the poems not only about recent headlines, but also about poetry itself? We met Blake Morrison at last year's Edinburgh International Book Festival where we asked him whether poems about current events risk quickly becoming dated and what a poet can bring to a news story that a journalist can't.

Poet Chrys Salt talks about who has the right to write about certain subjects, about writing war poetry when you have a son who is a soldier, and how poetry can benefit from a good performance. Thanks to James Iremonger for the music in this podcast. https://jamesiremonger.wordpress.com/ Image of Chrys Salt by Claire Newman-Williams.

In the last regular podcast to feature the founder host of the Scottish Poetry Library podcast, Ryan Van Winkle looks back at some of his favourite interviews since he started the podcast in 2008 as part of his Reader in Residence position at the SPL. Featuring Robert Pinsky, Caroline Bird, Sarah Broom, Owen Sheers, Jed Milroy, Matthew Zapruder, Jane Hirshfield, Golan Haji, Sabreen Khadim, Krystelle Bamford, John Glenday, Mark Doty, Paula Meehan, Adam Zagajewski and Mary Ruefle. This podcast was produced by Colin Fraser @kailworm and presented by Ryan Van Winkle @rvwable of Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser

Marion McCready is at the forefront of the new wave of Scottish poets. A writer who succeeds in making nature sound unnatural, she has a unique vision of the landscape we inhabit which she captures in an intense, sometimes sinister, lyricism. In conversation with the SPL, she talks about how Christianity influences her work, and what she has against rhubarb.

This podcast was recorded at and in partnership with the 2014 StAnza International Poetry Festival. Jennifer Williams talks to Jacob Polley about meaning and lack thereof, about resisting the idea of ‘home’, about remaining open to possibility when you’re writing and much more. Jacob Polley is the author of three acclaimed poetry collections, The Brink, Little Gods and, most recently, The Havocs, as well as a Somerset Maugham Award-winning novel, Talk of the Town. Born in Cumbria, he lives in Scotland where he teaches at the University of St Andrews. http://jacobpolley.com/ Many thanks to James Iremonger for the music in the podcast: https://jamesiremonger.wordpress.com/tabla/ Image by Mai Lin Li

David Harsent is one of the UK's leading poets, as his recent T.S. Eliot Prize-win for his collection Fire Songs (Faber) re-affirmed. In August 2014, while up in Edinburgh for Book Festival, Harsent took some time to speak to the SPL. In a wide-ranging conversation, Harsent spoke about harrier hens, the heat death of the universe and the time he met Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadžić. Image: David Harsent by Writers Centre Norwich, under a Creative Commons licence.

Ryan Van Winkle talks with poet Thomas Lux on this week's episode. Winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, a Guggenheim fellowship as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Thomas was at the SPL for our Sympoetry event last year. We get the opportunity to hear some of Thomas's work and he discusses his approach to writing and his inspiring thoughts on teaching creative writing. His recently published Selected Poems is available now from Bloodaxe Books. This episode is presented by Ryan Van Winkle @rvwable and produced by Colin Fraser @kailworm of Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser

Ryan Van Winkle talks to the poet Sasha Dugdale, who is also editor of Modern Poetry in Translation. She tells us about how some of her poems come from 'failed translations' and she discusses how sound plays a much more important role in her own writing than other factors. She also discusses the problems involved with being a poet and a poetry translator. Presented by Ryan Van Winkle and produced by Colin Fraser of Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser

Performance poet Jem Rolls tells all about the page/stage debate, what it takes to make a living from performing poetry and how rhyme helps you remember.

In this first SPL Podcast of 2015, Jennifer Williams, SPL Programme Manager, speaks to Salma, Indian poet and crusader for women’s rights. They talk about Salma’s strength and bravery in the face of oppression, her commitment to writing and publishing under extremely challenging circumstances and even *gasp* the use of the ‘v’ word in contemporary poetry! We hope this will be an inspiring and entertaining podcast to kick off your poetic new year. Salma was born in a small village in Southern India, and overcame many obstacles to publish her poetry and fiction, now recognised as an important contribution to Tamil writing. Salma came to Scotland as part of the Scottish Poetry Library’s Commonwealth Poets United project. As part of the cultural programme surrounding the XX Commonwealth Games, Commonwealth Poets United was an international exchange project between six Scottish poets and poets from six Commonwealth nations: Canada, India, Jamaica, New Zealand, Nigeria and South Africa. It established rela