Celebrating the 2024 Highland Book Prize Longlist at Topping & Company Booksellers of St Andrews
Celebrating the 2024 Highland Book Prize Longlist
14 May, Toppings & Co. Booksellers, St Andrews
Β£10/Β£8, redeemable against featured books
3 poets β @brambrella.bsky.social, @niallpoetry.bsky.social, & Gerda Stevenson β celebrate 2 exceptional collections
www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/st-an...
04.05.2025 13:29 β π 7 π 3 π¬ 0 π 1
Some very kind words on Fower Pessoas from Paul Malgrati.
13.04.2025 10:29 β π 9 π 3 π¬ 0 π 0
Blown away by this review of Fower Pessoas from Stuart Kelly.
03.04.2025 17:52 β π 7 π 2 π¬ 0 π 0
Heartening to see the general reaction to this poem from my latest: thanks to The Scotsman for selecting it as their poem of the week.
02.04.2025 13:41 β π 8 π 2 π¬ 0 π 1
What's all that about the cruellest month?! We don't think so! April kicks off with a brilliant poetry launch party in #Edinburgh this Friday feat. three exceptional poets: Colin Bramwell @brambrella.bsky.social, Patrick Romero McCafferty & Charles Lang! Join us!
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/big-braw-p...
01.04.2025 11:28 β π 1 π 1 π¬ 0 π 1
Couldn't make it to one of our launches of The Oasis in March? We've got you covered! Charles will be on tour across Scotland and Ireland in April. Join us in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Galway, Cork or Paisley for festival events, readings, conversations and more βsee you there! π #books #poetry
25.03.2025 13:35 β π 5 π 4 π¬ 1 π 0
The Night Ferry
John Burnside
Had I been less prepared, I would have left
in springtime, when the plum tree in the yard
was still in bloom,
the windows open after months of snow,
one magpie in the road
and then another.
I could have slipped away, late afternoon,
while everyone was busy somewhere else,
the fish van at the corner, children
dawdling home from school
in twos and threes, a porch light
lit against the dusk on Tollbooth Wynd.
Give me these years again and I will
spend them wisely.
Done with the compass; done, now, with the chart.
The ferry at the dock, lit
stern to prow,
the next life like a footfall in my heart.
Had I been less prepared, I would have left
in springtime, when the plum tree in the yard
was still in bloom,
the windows open after months of snow,
one magpie in the road
and then anotherβ¦
βJohn Burnside, βThe Night Ferryβ
published in the @lrb.co.uk, December 2020
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
19.03.2025 16:12 β π 78 π 18 π¬ 3 π 4
The Good Neighbour
John Burnside
Somewhere along this street, unknown to me,
behind a maze of apple trees and stars,
he rises in the small hours, finds a book
and settles at a window or a desk
to see the morning in, alone for once,
unnamed, unburdened, happy in himself.
I donβt know who he is; Iβve never met him
walking to the fish-house, or the bank,
and yet I think of him, on nights like these,
waking alone in my own house, my other neighbours
quiet in their beds, like drowsing flies.
He watches what I watch, tastes what I taste:
on winter nights, the snow; in summer, sky.
He listens for the bird lines in the clouds
and, like that ghost companion in the old
explorersβ tales, that phantom in the sleet,
fifth in a party of four, heβs not quite there,
but not quite inexistent, nonetheless;
and when he lays his book down, checks the hour
and fills a kettle, something hooded stops
as cell by cell, a heartbeat at a time,
my one good neighbour sets himself aside,
and alters into someone I have known:
a passing stranger on the road to grief,
husband and father; rich man; poor man; thief.
Somewhere along this street, unknown to me,
behind a maze of apple trees and stars,
he rises in the small hours, finds a bookβ¦
βJohn Burnside, βThe Good Neighbourβ
THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR (Cape, 2005)
Hear John Burnside read this poem on @thepoetryarchive.bsky.social
poetryarchive.org/poem/good-ne...
19.03.2025 14:36 β π 16 π 3 π¬ 1 π 0
The young musician aiming to preserve a Black Isle dialect
Musician Grace Stewart-Skinner is creating a music album to celebrate the fishing heritage of a Black Isle village
Musician Grace Stewart-Skinner recorded interviews with residents of Avoch in the Black Isle & combined these with her own musical compositions to create Auchies Spikkinβ Auchie. The Avochie dialect combines elements of Scots & Gaelic.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...
16.03.2025 14:47 β π 60 π 26 π¬ 1 π 1
'Fower Pessoas' by Colin Bramwell - a Q and A with the author
βEach of us is several, is many, a profusion of selves,β wrote Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese writer. Today Carcanet Press release 'Fower Pessoas', a new collection from Colin Bramwell, which takes t...
βI wanted to honour Scots in a dramatic, vocal contextβ¦ Iβve tried to bring Pessoa to life in that new context β to embolden his characters, reimagining them a century later, dislocating them to a context more personal to me.β
βColin Bramwell on FOWER PESSOAS
themadridreview.com/f/fower-pess...
15.03.2025 19:08 β π 14 π 4 π¬ 0 π 1
Stoked to see βNew Shoesβ by Charles Lang, from his brilliant #poetry collection The Oasis, featured as Poem of the Week in todayβs @scotsman.com! ππ©Ά
βThe Oasis is the real dealβ, you heard it here first! π€« Pick up a copy of the paper for the full poem or treat yourself to a new book today! π
15.03.2025 14:14 β π 5 π 3 π¬ 0 π 0
A preview of a new post against a green background.
New post π°
Lesley Harrison writes about the launch of 'Fower Pessoas' by Colin Bramwell @brambrella.bsky.socialβ¬
northseapoets.substack.com/p/at-the-lau...
#NorthSeaPoets #Poetry
11.03.2025 12:00 β π 5 π 2 π¬ 0 π 0
Many thanks to Lesley Harrison of @northseapoets.bsky.social for her generous response to my Fower Pessoas. Great to see one more stack in the north sea. Theirs is well worth subscribing to - open.substack.com/pub/northsea...
11.03.2025 11:03 β π 7 π 2 π¬ 0 π 0
Is there a place for lyric poetry in a post-lyric world?
Kathleen Jamie
New post! @kathleenjamie.bsky.social explores the place of lyric poetry in a post-lyric world βοΈ
#NorthSeaPoets #PoetryCommunity
09.03.2025 19:00 β π 5 π 2 π¬ 0 π 1
Poetry As Fuck
We are Poetry As F*ck. Do with that what you will.
And thereβs also a big bunch of spoken word stuff that I produced with @strongmisgiving.bsky.social and featuring @brambrella.bsky.social, @ryanvance.bsky.social, @smaychel.bsky.social, @tyronelewis22.bsky.social and @seanwaikeung.bsky.social among others
07.03.2025 17:10 β π 2 π 2 π¬ 0 π 0
On Wednesday 5th March at 7pm, please join us online to celebrate the launch of Fower Pessoas by Colin Bramwell. The event will be hosted by Scottish Makar Peter Mackay and will feature readings, discussion & audience Q&A.
Book your ticket here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nCHoh...
05.03.2025 10:00 β π 4 π 4 π¬ 0 π 0
Live online launch of @brambrella.bsky.social new book, hosted by Peter Mackay, organised by @carcanet.bsky.social Info: www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/even... #online #launch #poetry
04.03.2025 17:19 β π 11 π 3 π¬ 0 π 0
Image announcing the launch of North Sea Poets Features a sunset photo of a beach, a logo with blue waves, and the names of poets Kathleen Jamie, Niall Campbell, Karen Solie, Don Paterson, John Glenday, Lisa Brockwell, and Lesley Harrison.
North Sea Poets is live! We offer online masterclasses, webinars, workshops for poets everywhere (novice or adept) and readers, because poems sing in the dark times. Hope you'll join us. Pls see website. Do share.
northseapoets.com π
@northseapoets.bsky.social
01.03.2025 09:39 β π 67 π 32 π¬ 0 π 1
Posted before but time to post it again:
28.02.2025 22:17 β π 46 π 16 π¬ 3 π 2
Slava Ukraini πΊπ¦
28.02.2025 18:20 β π 35058 π 4575 π¬ 402 π 97
Thanks for reading. Love to all. Colin x
27.02.2025 12:24 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
If you haven't got the book yet, it's now available from all good (and evil) bookstores everywhere. Or DM me and I'll happily sell you a signed copy.
27.02.2025 12:24 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Thanks so much if you've bought the book already. To see it find its readership has been an unexpectedly beautiful thing. If you have a favourite poem or heteronym, let me know in comments,or post it so others can read.
27.02.2025 12:24 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
writer (recent poetry collection THE SWAILING w/ MQUP) | translator (E.M. Cioran's Notebooks, forthcoming) | Researcher & UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, Rewriting Wor(l)ds | lecturer @ UofEdinburgh | co-Director @ The Literacy Lab
Poet. Scotlandβs Next Generation Young Makar. My debut collection, Nettles, is out now! πͺπΈπ΄σ §σ ’σ ³σ £σ ΄σ Ώ
nazaretranea.com
Cardiff based Poet, Writer, Academic 'Octopus Mind' (Seren Books) - a Guardian Best Poetry Book of 2023 https://linktr.ee/createdtoread Teach creative writing, writing on/around ekphrasis, neurodiversity, creativity, climate crisis, art
Poet and translator
Lurcher devotee
Writer who lives in Manchester. Repβd by Creative Artists Agency. LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD, my biography of Muriel Spark, is out in April 2026 πββ¬
https://lnk.to/LikeaCatLovesaBird
Instagram.com/drjamesbailey
Berlin-based Scottish writer. Words in New Flash Fiction Review, Vestal Review, Trampset and elsewhere. Featured in Best Small Fictions 2024. My pen name came to me in a dream. You can find a selection of my writing here: https://linktr.ee/ruralunease
Poet, editor and translator. Edinburgh. SciencesPo, UoE / TEDx / New Writer Awardee β23 (Scottish Book Trust) / Ed-at-large, Pen and Anvil Press, MA / Afterbody, Blue Diode Press, Edinburgh: tinyurl.com/afterbodybluediode
Poet from Leeds based in Edinburgh (she/her)
Debut collection (Bloodaxe, 2026)
Bird Cherry (Verve, 2023)
https://roshnigallagher.com/
artist and poet; ecological remediation and human recuperation; landscape, tea, limit and creativity; lives by the sea in Edinburgh; mostly sharing a daily poem here.
Onion rip-off.
https://the-tablet.vercel.app/
Nautilus Island's hermit heiress (settler, she)
Books, bread, cloth, cyclamen, snow, roses, rooms
Walkingβlookingβliberation
PATTERN-BOOK (Carcanet, 2025), THE CENTURY (Milkweed, 2020); rep: Wylie
profile, Corita print; banner, campion/gorse
ohbara.com
Writer, poodle fancier, Australian in Scotland. Author of Earth Girls (2016) & The Round Ring (2021). Both Pitt Street Poetry.
Unreliable narrator
πEdinburgh/ Glasgow
π Creative Writing PhD Candidate, University of Strathclyde
π΄σ §σ ’σ ³σ £σ ΄σ Ώ π§πͺ πΊπΈ πΈπ¬
Independent publisher of underrepresented voices & stories in Irish literature.
π Out now:This Is Not A Cookbook by Roxana Manouchehri
π Upcoming:Contentious Spaces by Rosaleen McDonagh
π€In the Half Light:Voices from Black Ireland curated by Phil Mullen
Poet | Poems in Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, Banshee, The Irish Times, Irish Independent, Rattle, Magma. | Irish Book Awards Poem of the Year β22
Trust of the first Scottish poet laureate, Edwin Morgan.
Noticeboard and live commonplace book of North Sea Poets. We run online masterclasses, workshops and webinars.
northseapoets.com
The Manchester Review is an online literary journal that brings together the best of new international writing.
https://www.themanchesterreview.co.uk/