This podcast was recorded at-and in partnership with-the 2014 StAnza International Poetry Festival. Jennifer Williams talked to Jacob Polley about meaning and lack thereof, about resisting the idea of ‘home’ and 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.

Many thanks to James Iremonger for the music in the podcast.

Image: Mai Lin Li.

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.

Thomas A Clark's latest poetry collection - thrums - is an experimental book-length sequence of minimalist verse. The poems reward repeated reading, out loud, or quietly, very slowly, connecting with the words and sounds as they're encountered, experiencing the work as visceral entities in themselves. Clark's short verses are meditations on rurality, landscapes, all living things, and the sensory experience of walking in the natural world.

Our resident podcast host, Sam Tongue, reads and discusses sections of thrums with the Nothing But The Poem group (which is free to anyone who becomes a Friend of the Scottish Poetry Library). In this podcast Sam examines his own thoughts and experiences when connecting with thrums, as well as the opinions and feelings of the group.

thrums by Thomas A Clarke was published by Carcanet (2025).

In this podcast Jennifer Williams talks to Madeleine Campbell, A C Clarke, Christine De Luca and Haris Psarras about poetry translation in Scotland and about the innovative new book Quaich: An Anthology of Translation in Scotland Today.

About the book:

This collection of essays and translations has been compiled to sample and reflect on contemporary Scotland's rich tradition of literary translation. The title is symbolic of how the anthology is to be read: as an offering, an act of kindness, an opportunity to gain insight into other cultures. "Quaich" is a term derived from the Scottish Gaelic word "cuach", and it refers to a traditional two-handled drinking cup, usually made of wood or metal. The quaich has a special place in Scottish history; it was used to offer guests a cup of welcome, and the craft of quaich-making was held in high regard. Translation can sometimes be seen as an unfriendly, invasive, even treacherous, act, but this volume aims to celebrate what is good about literary translation, its power to bring together, rather than to separate. All the texts contained here have a vital connection to Scotland through their authors or translators, languages or themes. They are as diverse as Scotland is today, itself a plurality of languages and peoples.

Image: Quaich by Stephen Downes, under a Creative Commons licence

In this podcast from 2015, Jennifer Williams speaks to Salma*, an 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!

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 relationships between artists, organisations and communities through a culturally enriching poetry exchange.

The project was supported by Creative Scotland and the British Council, and partnered by BBC Radio Scotland.

*Rakkiaiah is an Indian Tamil writer, activist, and politician known by the pen name Salma and the nickname Rajathi, and often referred to as Rajathi Salma.

Music by James Iremonger.

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.

Music by James Iremonger.

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.

In this podcast guest interviewer and multi-lingual writer and translator Jessica Johannesson Gaitán talks to three 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!

Juana Adcock is a poet and translator working in English and Spanish. Ioannis Kalkounos was born in Greece. His first collection of poems, dakryma, was published in 2011 (Athens, Dromon Publications). Agnes Török is a spoken word performer, poetry workshop leader, poetry event organiser and Loud Poet. Jessica Johannesson Gaitán grew up in Sweden and Colombia.

Music by James Iremonger.