Blog

Push the Boat Out poetry festival

Push the Boat Out poetry festival starts this Friday.

Weathering the Storm: Scottish Poets Discuss Climate Change, Resilience and Adaptation

Weathering the Storm: Scottish Poets Discuss Climate Change Resilience and Adaptation at COP26

A civic makar’s role in finding and nurturing human connection

My theory was that using poetry to reflect in this way could help us focus on the positives, on the very reasons we need and want to change our world. 

Thanks – Scottish Nature Poem for COP26

The SPL is thrilled by the number of lines submitted – one thousand in all –  to the Makar’s collaborative People’s Poem. The window for submissions is now closed. Kathleen Jamie is working hard to compose the final work...

The Callum MacDonald Award 2021

The Callum Macdonald Memorial Award (CMMA), for the publisher of an outstanding pamphlet, is open for business again. Find out more.

Blood, Pride and RJ Arkhipov

As Pride Month 2021 comes to a close, Toni Velikova from the Scottish Poetry Library sat down with RJ Arkhipov to discuss the poetry of blood and his journey to today.

Finding Your Voice

We ran a series of creative writing workshops with the EIS for teachers. The workshop's tutor Jenny Lindsay writes about it and the students share poems.

It’s Coming (to Our) Home

The SPL will be building up to each of Scotland’s Euro 2020 group fixtures at this summer’s tournament with three special LIVE poetry gigs that you can watch online.

Wigtown Poetry Prize – A History

Hugh McMillan chronicles the history of the Wigtown Poetry Prize.

To Mind Your Life: Poems for Nurses and Midwives

Today, on International Nurses Day, we're launching To Mind Your Life: Poems for Nurses and Midwives. A gift from the nursing and midwifery profession to its newest members, the pocket-sized book being given to 3000 nurses and midwives graduating...

Remembering Brian Johnstone

The Scottish Poetry Library is sad to learn of the death of Brian Johnstone, poet and friend of the SPL.

Care Experienced History Month

We mark Care Experienced History Month with poems written to mark it.