The Scottish Poetry Library is a public library specialising in Scottish poetry. Since 1999, the library has been based at 5 Crichton's Close, just off the Canongate in Edinburgh's Old Town.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a public library specialising in Scottish poetry. Since 1999, the library has been based at 5 Crichton's Close, just off the Canongate in Edinburgh's Old Town.
The library was founded in 1984 by poet Tessa Ransford. Tom Hubbard was its first librarian. The present Director, Asif Khan, was appointed from June 2016. [1] Khan is supported by a team of librarians and specialist staff with expertise in collections management, engagement, learning, events, publishing and communications. [2]
The SPL is a limited company with charitable status. From November 2023, its Board was co-Chaired by Claudia Daventry and Charlie Roy. The SPL has status as a Creative Scotland Regularly Funded Organisation (RFO) with a remit to support audience development, literacy through reader development and creative writing classes with diverse groups, schools and public libraries, and to promote opportunities for writers and performers for showcasing their talents at home and abroad.
The SPL’s work on wellbeing themes has included reminiscence activity supporting people with dementia in care settings, and the Tools of the Trade anthologies that are gifted to every graduating doctor, teacher, nurse & midwife in Scotland. In 2020, the SPL led on a mapping project of Scotland’s Creative Words for Wellbeing practitioners. This resulted in the SPL commissioning reader development and creative writing workshops with people experiencing long-COVID, along with classes for teachers, mothers and a partnership programme with Lapidus Scotland focusing on COVID-recovery and renewal.
In the international arena the SPL has partnered with Literature Wales and Poetry Ireland, as well as the cultural programmes of the Scottish Government Hubs in Dublin, Brussels, Paris, Berlin and London. Further afield, the SPL was commissioned by the British Council to engage with cultural organisations and artists in Quebec.
The SPL supports the Callum MacDonald Memorial Award for Scottish poetry pamphlets, presented in partnership with the Satire Literary Awards. In 2021, the library sponsored the Best Poetry Book category in the Gaelic Book Awards. The library is represented on a number of advisory and advocacy groups, including Literature Alliance Scotland, the Scots Language Resources Network and the RIVAL network for librarians and information professionals. The library supports professional development initiatives, including the Scottish Book Trust’s New Writers Awards scheme. In 2016, the SPL was recognised with a Creative Edinburgh Award for its diverse programming. [3]
In 2020, the SPL relaunched its Ambassadors programme to promote its presence in the regions, and work produced in Scottish Gaelic and Scots languages. The first cohort of Ambassadors were Aoife Lyall, Ceitidh Campbell, Hugh McMillan and Thomas Clark. [4]
Since 1999, the library has been based at 5 Crichton's Close, just off the Canongate in Edinburgh's Old Town. The library building was designed by Malcolm Fraser Architects, and was shortlisted for Channel 4's "Building of the Year" in 2000. [5] It has been described as "a poem in glass and stone", [6] and was included in Prospect magazine's 2005 list of the 100 best modern Scottish buildings. [7]
Sorley MacLean was a Scottish Gaelic poet, described by the Scottish Poetry Library as "one of the major Scottish poets of the modern era" because of his "mastery of his chosen medium and his engagement with the European poetic tradition and European politics". Nobel Prize Laureate Seamus Heaney credited MacLean with saving Scottish Gaelic poetry.
Scottish literature is literature written in Scotland or by Scottish writers. It includes works in English, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Brythonic, French, Latin, Norn or other languages written within the modern boundaries of Scotland.
Edwin George Morgan was a Scottish poet and translator associated with the Scottish Renaissance. He is widely recognised as one of the foremost Scottish poets of the 20th century. In 1999, Morgan was made the first Glasgow Poet Laureate. In 2004, he was named as the first Makar or National Poet for Scotland.
Modern Scottish Poetry: An Anthology of the Scottish Renaissance 1920-1945 was a poetry anthology edited by Maurice Lindsay, and published in 1946 by Faber and Faber.
The Scottish Renaissance was a mainly literary movement of the early to mid-20th century that can be seen as the Scottish version of modernism. It is sometimes referred to as the Scottish literary renaissance, although its influence went beyond literature into music, visual arts, and politics. The writers and artists of the Scottish Renaissance displayed a profound interest in both modern philosophy and technology, as well as incorporating folk influences, and a strong concern for the fate of Scotland's declining languages.
Kathleen Jamie FRSL is a Scottish poet and essayist. In 2021 she became Scotland's fourth Makar.
Angus Peter Campbell is a Scottish award-winning poet, novelist, journalist, broadcaster and actor. Campbell's works, which are written mainly in Scottish Gaelic, draw heavily upon both Hebridean mythology and folklore and the magic realism of recent Latin American literature. In an interview prior to his death, Sorley MacLean, who is with Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair one of the two greatest writers in the history of Scottish Gaelic literature, called Campbell one of the best living Scottish poets in any language.
Derick Smith Thomson was a Scottish poet, publisher, lexicographer, academic and writer. He was originally from Lewis, but spent much of his life in Glasgow, where he was Professor of Celtic at the University of Glasgow from 1963 to 1991. He is best known for setting up the publishing house Gairm, along with its magazine, which was the longest-running periodical ever to be written entirely in Gaelic, running for over fifty years under his editorship. Gairm has since ceased, and was replaced by Gath and then STEALL. He was an Honorary President of the Scottish Poetry Library, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy. In June 2007, he received an honorary degree from Glasgow University.
Christopher Whyte is a Scottish poet, novelist, translator and critic. He is a novelist in English, a poet in Scottish Gaelic, the translator into English of Marina Tsvetaeva, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Rainer Maria Rilke, and a critic of Scottish and international literature. His work in Gaelic appears under the name Crìsdean MacIlleBhàin.
Tom Hubbard was the first librarian of the Scottish Poetry Library and is the author, editor or co-editor of over thirty academic and literary works.
The School of Scottish Studies was founded in 1951 at the University of Edinburgh. It holds an archive of approximately 33,000 field recordings of traditional music, song and other lore, housed in George Square, Edinburgh. The collection was begun by Calum Maclean - brother of the poet, Sorley MacLean - and the poet, writer and folklorist, Hamish Henderson, both of whom collaborated with American folklorist Alan Lomax, who is credited as being a catalyst and inspiration for the work of the school.
Kevin MacNeil is a Scottish novelist, poet, screenwriter, lyricist and playwriter. He was born and raised on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.
Scottish literature in the Middle Ages is literature written in Scotland, or by Scottish writers, between the departure of the Romans from Britain in the fifth century, until the establishment of the Renaissance in the late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century. It includes literature written in Brythonic, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, French and Latin.
Literature in early modern Scotland is literature written in Scotland or by Scottish writers between the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century and the beginnings of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution in mid-eighteenth century. By the beginning of this era Gaelic had been in geographical decline for three centuries and had begun to be a second class language, confined to the Highlands and Islands, but the tradition of Classic Gaelic Poetry survived. Middle Scots became the language of both the nobility and the majority population. The establishment of a printing press in 1507 made it easier to disseminate Scottish literature and was probably aimed at bolstering Scottish national identity.
Poetry of Scotland includes all forms of verse written in Brythonic, Latin, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, French, English and Esperanto and any language in which poetry has been written within the boundaries of modern Scotland, or by Scottish people.
Scottish literature in the eighteenth century is literature written in Scotland or by Scottish writers in the eighteenth century. It includes literature written in English, Scottish Gaelic and Scots, in forms including poetry, drama and novels. After the Union in 1707 Scottish literature developed a distinct national identity. Allan Ramsay led a "vernacular revival", the trend for pastoral poetry and developed the Habbie stanza. He was part of a community of poets working in Scots and English who included William Hamilton of Gilbertfield, Robert Crawford, Alexander Ross, William Hamilton of Bangour, Alison Rutherford Cockburn, and James Thomson. The eighteenth century was also a period of innovation in Gaelic vernacular poetry. Major figures included Rob Donn Mackay, Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir, Uillean Ross and Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, who helped inspire a new form of nature poetry. James Macpherson was the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation, claiming to have found poetry written by Ossian. Robert Burns is widely regarded as the national poet.
Literature in modern Scotland is literature written in Scotland, or by Scottish writers, since the beginning of the twentieth century. It includes literature written in English, Scottish Gaelic and Scots in forms including poetry, novels, drama and the short story.
George Bruce OBE was a Scottish poet and radio journalist.
Valerie Gillies is a Canadian-born poet who grew up in Scotland. She was the second Edinburgh Makar from 2005 to 2008. Gillies has written for literary and arts reviews, the theatre, and BBC radio and television, and has worked with visual artists and musicians. She has also taught creative writing extensively.
Gillian K. Ferguson is a Scottish poet and journalist, born and living in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is the creator of Air for Sleeping Fish (Bloodaxe) and the best-seller, Baby: Poems on Pregnancy, Birth and Babies. She won a £25,000 Creative Scotland Award and created a major poetry project exploring the human genome called The Human Genome: Poems on the Book of Life, About her project, she said, "the Genome has remained fascinating throughout; a fantastic, beautiful poem - a magnificent work of Chemistry spanning four billion years of the art of Evolution." The project was praised, including by broadcaster, Andrew Marr of the BBC, Francis Collins, Head of the US Human Genome Project and by philosopher Mary Midgley author of Science and Poetry (Routledge).
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
