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PODCAST

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast

Scottish Poetry Library

Podcasts from the Scottish Poetry Library, the world’s leading resource for poetry from Scotland and beyond.

arts books

All Episodes

35:06

From the Archive: Alasdair Paterson. June 2014

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/11/23

Odysseys of one sort or another theme this archive edition of the SPL podcast.Our guide, the poet Alasdair Paterson, takes us on a journey from a wry take on Homer’s Greece through the Liverpool music scene of the 1970s, onwards to post-Soviet Russia, ending in Arcadia. Little wonder Paterson’s collection is called Elsewhere or Thereabouts (Shearsman). Along the way we welcome guests such as the geologist James Hutton and Paterson’s fellow librarian-poet Philip Larkin.

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38:05

From the Archive: Commonwealth Poets United-Toni...

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/11/09

Commonwealth Poets United was an international exchange between six Scottish poets and poets from six Commonwealth nations. Toni Stuart is a South African poet named in the Mail and Guardian’s list of 200 Inspiring Young South Africans for her work in co-founding I Am Somebody! – an NGO that uses storytelling and youth development to build integrated communities. Rachel McCrum, originally from Northern Ireland, is a poet and the co-creator of popular spoken word event Rally and Broad

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31:54

From the Archive: Gerry Loose. October 2014

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/11/02

In August 2014, our then regular podcast host Colin Waters travelled to Faslane, home of the UK’s nuclear deterrent, to talk to poet Gerry Loose. Loose’s collection fault line is a suite of poems inspired by the area, which is his backyard. The great natural beauty contrasts with the ugliness of the military base, inspiring Loose. He guides Colin around the area, sharing its history and his thoughts on the nature poetry’s radical past and present.

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17:14

Nothing But the Poem - Isabelle Baafi

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/10/27

This edition of our Nothing But The Poem podcast, hosted as usual by Samuel Tongue, features two poems by Isabelle Baafi, from her 2025 Forward Prize winning debut collection Chaotic Good.‘In this wise-hearted and deft debut, Baafi gets to the grain of family, inheritance, the grit of growing up and the grappling to become oneself.’ - Rachel Long ‘Isabelle Baafi’s Chaotic Good is a debut of amazing endurance. Its formal pressures create a kind of kaleidoscopic intensity that – with each turn of the

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35:35

From the Archive: Jenny Lewis. May 2014

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/10/19

When we think of World War One, our images of the conflict are largely shaped by those of the Western Front or perhaps Gallipoli. It was a truly global conflict, however, and one less remarked upon campaign was that of an ill-fated Anglo-Indian force dispatched to secure oil supplies in what is, today, southern Iraq. Poet, playwright and songwriter Jenny Lewis’ father fought as part of that force. Her collection Taking Mesopotamia (Carcanet) re-imagines the campaign using her father’s diaries. It

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36:12

From the Archive: J.L. Williams. March 2014

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/10/12

J.L. Williams is a poet fascinated by the possibility of metamorphosis, whether it be witnessed in the natural world or experienced in one’s own life. Her first collection Condition of Fire (Shearsman) was inspired by Ovid, and in her second collection Locust and Marlin (Shearsman) she returns to the theme of change from a fresh perspective. In this 2014 podcast, she talks to us about the nature of stone, the poetry of locusts, and just how spiritual she is.Photo by Chris Scott.

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72:32

Tony Harrison Interview at Edinburgh Filmhouse in 2018

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/10/06

On Monday 19th November 2018 the poet Tony Harrison took part in a special event at Edinburgh Filmhouse. It was a rare public appearance from harrison which consisted of a conversation with his friend and collaborator Peter Symes, intercut with screeings of Harrison's film poems. These film poems hadn't been seen in public since they were originally screened on BBC and Channel 4 in the 80s and 90s. The event was organised by the Scottish Poetry Library in partnership with Edinburgh Filmhouse, and

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33:06

From the Archive: After Lermontov. December 2014

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/10/05

2014 marked the bicentenary of the birth of the Russian novelist and poet Mikhail Lermontov. A book, After Lermontov, featured a number of the Russian’s poems translated into English. Many of the poets involved are Scottish because Lermontov traced his ancestry back to Scotland and was a great admirer of Ossian and Sir Walter Scott. This podcast from 2014 looks at After Lermontov in the company of its editor and contributors: Peter France, Robert Crawford, Sasha Dugdale and Alexander Hutchison. We

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24:47

From the Archive: Caroline Bird. May 2014

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/09/14

In 2014 presenter Ryan Van Winkle talked with poet Caroline Bird after her reading at The Sutton Gallery in Edinburgh. She discussed her collection The Hat-Stand Union and read a couple of her poems. She also talked about the importance of reading for a poet and how an Arvon course she attended when she was 13 persuaded her to transform her reading habits. It obviously worked as she published her first collection at just 15 years of age.Produced by Colin Fraser.

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27:29

From the Archive: My Life in Poetry with Candia...

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/09/07

In November 2012, we staged the first in a new series of My Life in Poetry events at the Scottish Poetry Library. My Life in Poetry invites guests to reflect upon their lives through the lens of their favourite poems. Award-winning novelist Candia McWilliam did the SPL the great honour of accepting its invitation to take part. For 30 minutes, she discusses-with enviable lucidity-her favourite poems, which includes verse by Shakespeare, George Herbert, Robert Browning and Emily Dickinson.

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18:41

Samuel Tongue In Conversation with Taylor Dyson

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/08/20

Our resident podcast host, Samuel Tongue, speaks with the Dundee poet Taylor Dyson about her work and her appointment as the new Dundee and Angus Scots Scriever, based at the National Library of Scotland. The residency aims to support the creation of original writing in Scots, as well as the promotion of the language with communities throughout Scotland. The conversation touches on the local poetry scene in and around Dundee, language and the distinctive Dundee tongue, the intersection of class and

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31:45

From the Archive: Marie Howe. October 2012

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/07/20

“I feel poets have saved my life. The poets are our companions. They have found words for states all of us have experienced.” So said Marie Howe on a 2012 visit to Scotland, where she was appearing as a guest of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Howe’s first collection, The Good Thief (1988), was chosen for the National Poetry Series by Margaret Atwood, who praised Howe’s ‘poems of obsession that transcend their own dark roots’. Jennifer Williams interviews Howe about the craft of writing

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55:38

From the Archive: Robert Wrigley. December 2013

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/07/13

In this podcast Jennifer Williams talks to Robert Wrigley about his collection and first book to be published in the UK, The Church of Omnivorous Light: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe). They also touch on narrative in poetry, the infinite capacity of poetry to talk about love and, wild horses on the southern plains of Idaho. Robert was at the SPL in November 2013 for a reading with John Burnside. The Church of Omnivorous Light: Selected Poems draws on several collections published in the US, including

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14:38

Nothing But The Poem - Mick Imlah

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/07/10

In this Nothing But The Poem podcast, our usual host Samuel Tongue, with the SPL Friends Group, take a look at two poems from Mick Imlah. In a Guardian obituary, Alan Hollinghurst wrote that, when he died, Mick Imlah was mourned as one of the outstanding British poets of his time. He was also a particularly Scottish poet of distinction and his final collection The Lost Leader, according to Robert Crawford, came "as a revelation, showing just how much he had accomplished. Running the gamut of

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17:27

Nothing But The Poem - Naomi Shihab Nye

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/06/26

The prize-winning and former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Naomi Shihab Nye is the subject of this month’s Nothing But The Poem podcast. Known for poetry that lends a fresh perspective to ordinary events, people, and objects, Nye has said that, for her, “the primary source of poetry has always been local life, random characters met on the streets, our own ancestry sifting down to us through small essential daily tasks.” (Poetryfoundation.org) Our resident podcast host Sam Tongue

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15:58

Nothing But the Poem - Ngwatilo Mawiyoo

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/06/09

The multidimensional Kenyan poet, filmmaker and writer Ngwatilo Mawiyoo is the subject of this month’s Nothing But The Poem podcast.Keguro Macharia, in The New Inquiry, writes that Ngwatilo’s poetry "draws out my own memories [which] speaks to its generative power: its particularity is generous, opening ways for readers to encounter and inhabit it." Hers is a voice that insists on the personal and political being unified. Our resident podcast host Sam Tongue selected: Found: Portrait Of Umau’s

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30:56

From the Archive: Eddie Linden. May 2013

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/06/08

Who was Eddie Linden (1935-2023)?A poet, an editor, and a man with an extraordinary range of contacts and friends who ranged from Tom Leonard to Harold Pinter. Linden was a person who achieved much considering his incredibly tough childhood. Born illegitimate, he was passed from pillar to post as a boy in Glasgow. Later, he suffered much anguish when his Roman Catholicism conflicted with his sexuality. In the 1960s, after moving to London, he began an extraordinary literary magazine Aquarius,

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18:32

Wild Writing talk to the SPL

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/03/26

Lorna Fleming and Anna Gray lead small groups of (mostly) women to let loose their wild side, to dive in to their unconscious and find their buried treasure. Wild Writers are creatives, public sector workers, teenagers or any other type of human who is boldly and often messily transforming on their hero’s or heroine’s journey.Ahead of their workshops at the SPL in April and May 2025, Kevin Williamson chats to Lorna and Anna about their wild work. Tickets for the SPL Wild Writing workshops are

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54:57

From the Archive: Best Scottish Poems 2012

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/03/23

Best Scottish Poems is the Scottish Poetry Library’s annual online anthology of the 20 Best Scottish Poems, edited each year by a different editor. Bookshops and libraries – with honourable exceptions – often provide a very narrow range of poetry, and Scottish poetry in particular. Best Scottish Poems offers readers in Scotland and abroad a way of sampling the range and achievement of our poets, their languages, forms, concerns.It is in no sense a competition but a personal choice, and this year’s

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50:36

From the Archive: MacGillivray. February 2014

Scottish Poetry Library Podcast ·

2025/03/16

In this podcast the poet and artist MacGillivray reads from and discusses her book, The Last Wolf of Scotland (Pighog). The collection is an exploration of connections between Scotland and the American Frontier whose form brilliantly reflects the subject matter of the poems. MacGillivray joins Jennifer Williams in a conversation that maps the rich web of influences from which her poetry emerges, taking in Doors front-man Jim Morrison, mock ancient Scottish bard Ossian, and the mysterious ‘Man with

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