Scottish Poetry Library Podcast

On a dull and rain-soaked day in March of this year, the SPL travelled to St Andrews to interview the National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke. Despite the weather, Gillian was in fine form after a magnificent turn at St Andrews poetry festival,StAnza. Then again, Gillian has a way of spinning grey days into poetic gold. Her latest collection Ice (Carcanet) is inspired by the terrible winter of 2009. Here, she explains how the snow took her back to childhood memories, which in turned inspired an entire suite of winter-set poems. Photo courtesy of Poetry Live

Ryan Van Winkle discusses language identity, Singapore literature and poetic practice with Alvin Pang at the StAnza 2013 poetry festival. We get a chance to hear a few of Alvin's poems and a selection from his anthology TUMASIK: Contemporary Writing from Singapore. Alvin talks to Ryan about how Seamus Heaney has influenced his work, his grandmother's deadly Cantonese aphorisms and he reads a poem of his written in the distinctive unofficial language of Singapore, Singlish. Presented by Ryan Van Winkle @rvwable. Produced by Colin Fraser of Culture Laser Productions @culturelaser. Music by Ewen Maclean.

The SPL caught up with George Szirtes at the StAnza poetry festival in March, 2013. In town to read from his new collection Bad Machine (Bloodaxe), George Szirtes spoke to Colin Waters about memory, photography, Twitter and 1960s garage pop. Photo by Caroline Forbes.

Former Poet Laureate of the United States Robert Pinsky discusses poems, poetry readers, jazz and his curious family history with Ryan Van Winkle. He talks about his enthusiasm for his Favorite Poem Project - "For me a poem is a work of art that's so intimate and so internal that its medium is any reader's voice." In a wide ranging interview, he speaks about his formative years - "I grew up among very verbal, eloquent, skilful joke tellers and complainers and arguers and liars" - and the way he tries to capture music in language. He also reads a number of his poems and talks about his passion for poetry. "I never defended poetry. I don't believe in commercials for poetry. It is so fundamental, so large, so central... It's an insult to poetry to advocate for it or defend it." Photo by Jared C. Benedict under a Creative Commons on Wikimedia. Presented by Ryan Van Winkle @rvwable. Produced by Colin Fraser @anonpoetry. Music by Ewen Maclean.

Programme Manager Jennifer Williams discusses constructivist poetry and more with award-winning poet, fiction writer, critic and professor Tony Lopez at a rather noisy 2012 Edinburgh International Book Festival. Tony reads from his book ‘Only More So’ (Shearsman) and talks about upcoming projects.

Music by James Iremonger.

Aonghas MacNeacail has been a leading voice in Gaelic poetry for decades, as poet, and as a regular literary commentator in print and on Gaelic radio. He celebrated his seventieth birthday last year with a new selected poems, Laughing at the Clock / Déanamh Gáire Ris A' Chloc. MacNeacail came into the SPL to talk about his life and career, from his childhood on the island of Uig to his membership of Philip Hobsbaum's legendary writing group. He also talks about his struggles as a Gaelic speaker in an English language-dominated culture, including an oddly strenuous struggle with the telephone directory people. Image by Roddy Simpson.

Dael Allison takes us on an adventure in this episode as she discusses itinerant painter Ian Fairweather and reads a selection of poems from her collection Fairweather's Raft. Fairweather's story is a fascinating one - he travelled through Asia and Australia in the 30s and 40s and embarked on an epic raft journey at the age of 60 from Darwin to Timor. Recorded in Darwin at the WordStorm Festival. Presented by Ryan Van Winkle @rvwable. Produced by Colin Fraser @anonpoetry. Music by Ewen Maclean.

Fiona Sampson, former editor of Poetry Review and author of several collections including 2010's Rough Music and soon-to-be-published Collehill, took time out during her appearance at 2012's Edinburgh International Book Festival to talk to Jennifer Williams ahead of the publication of her latest collection and Poem, the new magazine she has begun.

Music by James Iremonger (www.jamesiremonger.co.uk).

Good poetry gets beneath the skin of readers. This episode features a poet who, for a short period, literally got 'under the skin'. In the autumn of 2008, poet and essayist Marianne Boruch was awarded a 'Faculty Fellowship in a Second Discipline', permitting her to study something new for a semester. Her choice? Anatomy classes. 'Speak Cadaver', a long poem, was her response to her time dissecting bodies, and in the SPL's latest podcast, she talks about her experiences in an interview conducted in Edinburgh University's Medical School's historical lecture theatre.

Ryan chatted with SJ Fowler and Tomasz Rozycki during the Sofia Poetics Festival with Literature Across Frontiers. We get a chance to hear them reading from their work and they discuss their individual approaches to their work. Presented by Ryan Van Winkle. Produced by Colin Fraser. Music by Ewen Maclean.