Scottish Poetry Library Podcast

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 eclectic spoken word night in Leith.

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.

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, poetry workshop leader, poetry event organiser and Loud Poet. She is the winner of multiple Poetry Slams in three different countries and two different languages. Török has been featured as a TED speaker, on The Today Programme and BBC Radio Scotland. At 2014’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, she was a BBC Poetry Slam finalist and her collaborative spoken word show with the Loud Poets received several five-star reviews. Her one-woman spoken word show ‘Sorry I Don’t Speak Culture’ was awarded Best International Spoken Word Show at the Edinburgh Fringe (PBH).

Török is premiering her newest project ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It – Take This Survey’, a one-woman show about the science of happiness, at the Edinburgh Fringe on the 16th – 24th of august. The show is an expansion of her TED talk on studying happiness. http://agnestorok.org/

Jessica Johannesson Gaitán grew up in Sweden and Colombia and currently lives in Bath. Her poems and stories have appeared in Gutter and The Stinging Fly among other publications. She writes about translations at therookeryinthebookery.org

Many thanks to James Iremonger for the music in this podcast. https://jamesiremonger.wordpress.com/tabla/

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.