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SPL
projects
The Scottish Poetry Library is an advocate for poetry reading in Scotland and internationally. We work with a range of partners, and in some unusual places, to bring poetry in all forms to all readers. This is a selection of recent projects. Edwin Morgan Archive |Twenty / 20 | Poets' Pub | Subway Stanzas| Holyrood Link | Scotsman Poem of the Week | Starbucks Poetry Bookshelf |Scottish Arts Council Poem of the Month | National Lottery Day | Text a Valentine's poem | Poetry on the move | Great Circle Poets in Residence | Wigtown Poetry Competition See also our International projects The SPL acquired an extensive archive of the published works of Edwin Morgan in 2007. This Heritage Lottery Fund project will involve the preservation and cataloguing of the items, the building of a special archive area in the Library, and an expansion in SPL activities and services, particularly in terms of education and online resources, as well as a national campaign to find Scotland's favourite poem by its first National Poet. Find out more
Twenty / 20 was a year-long series of twenty poetry and literature readings and events that took place throughout 2004, celebrating 20 years of the Scottish Poetry Library.
Poets' Pub offers an introduction to 20th century Scottish poetry through the eight poets represented in the painting "Poets' Pub" by Alexander Moffat (1980). We worked with Arts & Business, Glasgow City Council, Non Stop Advertising, Primesight and Strathclyde Partnership Transport to display poem-posters at all 15 Glasgow Subway stations in 2005/06. Over a period of 12 months we reached a potential readership of 1.5 million passengers. See our news page for more on the latest Subway Stanzas. The Holyrood Poetry Link first took place in 2000. The brainchild of Tessa Ransford, the director of the Scottish Poetry Library, it was a public poetry project that saw twenty-one Members of the Scottish Parliament commission new poems to celebrate 'the beginning of a new song' – the birth of the Scottish Parliament. In 2005, the second Holyrood Poetry Link scheme aimed to celebrate the vibrancy of contemporary Scottish poetry, whilst providing an opportunity for MSPs to demonstrate their support for the arts. Read more about the Holyrood Poetry Link 2005.
Staff at the SPL take turns to select a Poem of the Week, which is published in The Scotsman every Saturday.
In 2005, our neighbouring Starbucks asked us to give their premises a poetic feel. Customers can relax with a volume from the specially selected Poetry Bookshelf (our first 'pod'collection), read the Poem of the Month or follow lines of poetry round the walls. Scottish Arts Council Poem of the Month Each month SPL staff choose two poems by Scottish poets – one in English and one in Scots - to be showcased on the Scottish Arts Council website. Read the latest poems here.
We helped the National Lottery to celebrate their second National Lottery Day in November 2005. We commissioned Scottish poets to write about 'good causes' or 'celebrations', and the resulting poems were read on the radio and published in local papers from Moray Firth to Musselburgh. The Nation's Favourite Scottish Poem We advised on this BBC Radio Scotland campaign to discover the best-loved Scottish poem. Launched on St Andrews Day 2004, listeners had until Burns Night 2005 to nominate and vote for their favourites. This innovative project for Valentine's Day 2004 saw us commissioning six Scottish poets to write love poems within the constraints of the text messaging medium. The resulting poems were available for lovers lost for words to text anonymously to a mobile number of their choice… Poets who rose to the challenge included Tom Leonard and Edwin Morgan. In partnership with City of Edinburgh Council and The Writers' Museum, Poetry on the Move brought poetry onto an Edinburgh bus route. Poems by six poets - ranging from favourites like Sir Walter Scott to contemporary writers such as Matthew Fitt – were displayed on buses in Edinburgh, throughout 2005. Great Circle Poet in Residence Great Circle Communications approached us in 2003 with the idea of installing a Poet in Residence in their business. Financial support from Arts & Business turned the idea into reality, and poets Elspeth Murray and Donny O'Rourke each spent a week learning the Great Circle business and turning it into art. This highly successful scheme picked up the 2004 Arts & Business First Time Sponsorship Award. In April 2005 we jetted off to New York City to take part in Tartan Week. Support from the Scottish Executive, Visit Scotland and City of Edinburgh Council meant that, along with seven other Scottish literature and language organisations, we had a presence in the Scottish Village in Grand Central Terminal – visited by hundreds of thousands of curious New Yorkers. The Wigtown Poetry Competition Scotland's national poetry competition was launched in Autumn 2005 and attracted over 2000 entries. As well as running poetry workshops to tie in with competition, the SPL was involved as a preliminary judge, filtering the entries to be read by judges Don Paterson and Aonghas MacNeacail. Our connection with the competition continues. |
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