About me Whilst at school, I wrote poetry non-stop, and my first press-call was in the late sixties, in The Fife Free Press: ‘Front, right: Lorna Irvine, poetess’, after I’d won a poetry competition on the school cruise ship, S S Uganda. I still have the poem and my prize but my poems aren’t winners these days! I started my professional working life as a Drama and English teacher and lecturer and moved into professional theatre, acting, writing and touring Scotland with Theatre-in-Education projects. I came to work at SPL after my daughter was born so have come in a joyful full circle back to poetry. Making circles by bringing young people and their teachers together, writing and reading their own poetry, is the stuff and the love of my working life.

Contact me about ideas for poetry workshops; requests and booking for poet-led workshops; creating and running school poetry projects; poetry and the Curriculum for Excellence; reading and writing visits to SPL; CPD courses; setting up poetry competitions – for all ages and stages.

My favourite poetry quote is ‘Poetry is to language as dancing is to walking.’

My favourite poets are… Very eclectic! I’ve had different favourite poets at different stages of my life, so here’s a bit of the journey so far: Robert Louis Stevenson, Liz Lochhead, Gerard Manley Hopkins, D H Lawrence, Sylvia Plath, Edwin Morgan, Kathleen Jamie, Carol Ann Duffy, Michael Rosen, Jo Shapcott, Theodore Roethke,  Billy Collins, William Stafford, Adrian Mitchell, Dr Seuss, Czeslaw Milosz.

When not at work you’ll find me dancing; in a bookshop; pottering in the garden; looking for metaphors, bargains or lost socks; loading the dishwasher; being a taxi-service; reading biographies; collecting curios; playing scrabble against the computer; watching movies; in the sweetie aisle; walking in the woods; making lists; repeatedly shouting ‘Get a move on’; trying to get back to Paris.

My favourite biscuit is a fig roll… My favourite cake is real French bright pea-green Macarons à la pistache

Me as a form of poem would be undoubtedly a list poem though I aspire to be a perfect sonnet.

One of the poems I carry is… In my wallet, I carry John Hegley’s ‘The PhanTom’; it long ago ‘served its purpose’ but it’s still there as a reminder. My perennial bookmark is a much-folded dog-eared copy of Theodore Roethke’s ‘The Waking’. In my keepsake box is a copy of Samuel Daniel’s ‘Care-Charmer Sleep’.