Join us for BYO brunch and readings by six Scottish poets! Some basic brunch supplies will be provided but feel free to bring bagels, bubbly, or just come to enjoy the poetry :)
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SIX GREAT SCOTS POETS…!!!
Christina Chalmers: Born in Scotland and currently based in New York, Christina Chalmers is the author of chapbooks including Work Songs (Shit Valley, 2013), and Willingness (Materials, 2017). She has translated work from Italian, including Elvio Fachinelli's On Freud (2022), and she is presently completing a PhD in comparative literature at NYU. Subterflect (Distance No Object, 2023) is her first full-length book.
Jane Goldman is a Reader in English Literature and Creative Writing at Glasgow University and likes anything a word can do. A member of 12, a collective of women poets based in Scotland, and of the Writers' Shift at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, she is author of the pamphlet, Border Thoughts (Sufficient Place, Leamington Books, 2014), and debut collection SEKXPHRASTIKS (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2021). Her translation of the Latin poet Catullus's longest poem is just out: Catullus 64 (Main Point Books, 2023).
Colin Herd is a poet and Lecturer in Creative Writing. Dennis Cooper has written of his poetry that it is “a treasure trove of razzle-dazzle stylings, superfine wit, charismatic discretion, and a vacuuming tenderness. Herd's gift for words is exquisite and adventurous and armed to the teeth”. His books include too ok (blazevox, 2011), Glovebox (Knives, Forks and Spoons, 2013), Oberwilding – with SJ Fowler (2015), Swamp Kiss (Red Ceilings Press, 2018), Click and Collect (2017), You Name It (Dostoevsky Wannabe, 2019) and Cocoa & Nothing – with Maria Sledmere (SPAM Press, 2023).
Nicky Melville, Scotland’s best kept secret, has been described positively as an ‘avant-radge’ and pejoratively as ‘a poet.’ His magnum-opus The Imperative Commands came out with Dostoyevsky Wannabe in 2022 and Decade of Cu ts, his selected poems, was published in 2021 with Blue Diode Press. He is working on the third book in his ABBODIES trilogy, in which pop legends ABBA team up with problematic fave James Bond to make sense of the horror of Brexit and geopolitical coincidence. He makes music as Fuck This, a project which could be described as Ivor Cutler on [nick-]e. Melville is a Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow.
Iain Morrison is a poet, performer and programmer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His collection I’m a Pretty Circler was shortlisted for the Saltire Prize in 2019. In 2018 he made a filmpoem called Moving Gallery Notes as ArtfulScribe writer-in-residence at Southampton University’s John Hansard Gallery. His past events have included a night of drag queen poetry at Scottish Poetry Library in 2016, and a five-day-long reading of Emily Dickinson’s complete works at Berlin’s 2014 SOUNDOUT! festival. He trained as a musician and his practice moves between artforms, often ending up in a gallery.
Maria Sledmere is an artist and writer based in Glasgow. She is Managing Editor at SPAM Press, teaches community writing workshops with Beyond Form and the87press and is Lecturer in English & Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde. Maria was recently included in the Saltire Society’s ‘40 under 40’ list celebrating Scottish creatives. Most recent publications are Woundscape (Osmosis Press), An Aura of Plasma Around the Sun (Hem Press), Cocoa and Nothing (SPAM Press) – with Colin Herd and Visions & Feed (HVTN Press). Her next poetry collection, Cinders, is forthcoming from the Bay Area press Krupskaya Books in 2024. She is currently interested in the poetry of love, dreams and exhaustion.