Elspeth Murray, born in 1970, is a poet with a strong record of collaborative work in education, business and the performing arts. In 2006 she will be doing workshops mixing poetry with science in primary schools and leading courses on writing for health professionals. She has been poet in residence with PR and design agencies as well as for Glasgow Fort shopping centre and has written a poetic whisky label for the Scotch Malt Whisky Society.

Her poem ‘Flip Flotsam’ inspired a multi award-winning documentary and also features on the SPL’s CD The Jewelbox. Her work is published in several titles in the pocketbooks series – Without Day, Atoms of Delight, and Football Haiku and her circle poems appear in Turning Towards Living, edited by Alec Finlay and Song of Stone, the Spring 2004 island magazine. As joint editor, she has published the collected wisdom of an Edinburgh International Book Festival audience in A Magic Spell for the Far Journey and children’s nonsense poetry in The Eel’s Eyebrows with Puppet State Press. In 2001 Elspeth produced Oh, I Can’t Wait!, a unique collection of poems “in a startlingly original, un-booklike format” followed by a collectable set of poetry postcards.

The haggis poem below will be a feature of several Burns’ Night performances this year, including one that Elspeth and her husband Richard Medrington will be putting on for the SECC annual Burns dinner at the Caledonian Club in London. She is currently writing the text for Good Reason, a play based on a poem by Anthony Minghella, which tours throughout Scotland in April and May 2006.

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Related links

› Elspeth's website www.elspethmurray.com

› Recent pamphlet publications

› Angelic whisky label

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Books I love

An old favourite
'I spent several months living on an island in Kenya in 1997 and I treasured the books I took with me. Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and Kenneth White’s Coast to Coast were among my desert island companions. My favourite poem from that time was ‘A Land Not Mine’ by Anna Akhmatova from News of the Universe: poems of twofold consciousness edited by Robert Bly. '

A new favourite
'I recently went on a book binding course led by book artist Rachel Hazell. The hard back book I came away with is a daily inspiration and is my new favourite book.'

A current interest
'I love the idea of producing books from start to finish: writing and illustrating, cutting and folding, stitching or stapling, gluing and pressing. Marbling paper – magicking unrepeatable, other-worldly designs from rich, gloopy inks – is something I’m really keen to learn how to do too. '

Elspeth Murray, January 2006

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Featured poem

Address to a Hot Haggis

The haggis has taken the world by storm
With evocative Scottishness, a cheeky chubby form
And an epic, eight-verse intro, which is frankly not the norm
(may I be so bold?)
For a dish that's most delicious when eaten very warm
In a land so cold.

So hasten hottest haggis unto your waiting lips
With traditional mashed tatties, a side of ubiquitous chips
Or pan-fried haggis filo balls with raspberry garlic dips
Make swift this grace
So with the piping pudding here please now get to grips
And fill your face!

Elspeth Murray © 2002
commissioned by Great Circle Communications Limited