Sunday 17 October 2021

Poetry Scotland

Back in the 1990s, one of my first published poems appeared in Poetry Scotland. It was chosen by Sally Evans, a co-founder and editor of the magazine, who's still a stalwart of the poetry scene in Scotland. In fact, I was delighted to meet her finally in person at StAnza 2019 and thank her for her encouragement all those years ago.

Since 2020, Poetry Scotland has been edited by Andy Jackson and Judy Taylor. They've kept its unusual format - an A4 broadsheet - while its aesthetic has also been maintained and tweaked to bring it bang up to date (see their website here). As a consequence, I'm delighted to have a new poem in their latest issue, nº102, which is out now. High-quality printed journals still have an important role to play in contemporary poetry, and I hope Poetry Scotland will be around for many years to come...!

Monday 4 October 2021

Three poems from Starting Eleven on Wild Court

Poetry needs readers from beyond its bubble. It's got to engage with stuff that might not seem "poetic", reaching out to people who think poems are irrelevant to their lives. That was my aim when writing my sequence Starting Eleven - Aldershot F.C. Footballers of the 1980s, which is featured today on Wild Court (see here).