Scottish Poetry Library Podcast

For the first time in 75 years the Commonwealth of Nations appointed a Poet Laureate in Selina Tusitala Marsh, the former Poet Laureate of New Zealand, who lives on the NZ island of Waiheke. Selina, who has Pasifika ancestral roots, was made Poet Laureate in 2025 by the Commonwealth Foundation, for the inaugural two year post. Her work as Laureate aims to use poetry to connect the 2.7 billion Commonwealth citizens throughout 56 nation states.

British Council New Zealand & the Pacific and British Council Scotland partnered to support Selina's visit to Scotland for a curated programme of exhibitions, talks and performances produced by the Scottish Poetry Library and the Games Festival's Watershed initiative. While in Scotland Selina recorded a podcast at the Scottish Poetry Library with Scottish Makar, Peter Mackay. She brought her official hand-carved New Zealand Laureate tokotoko stick with her, which accompanies her at all her public events. Selina and Peter's wide-ranging conversation will be catnip for poetry lovers, an absolute joy to listen to, beginning with Selina reading her poem Tusitala, and where her middle name comes from. And yes the tokotoko stick is discussed!

Our regular podcast host Samuel Tongue, after meeting with the Friends of the SPL group, rolls up his sleeves for one of his favourite poets, Selima Hill, examining two poems from her 1997 collection, Violet (Bloodaxe).

Please Can I Have a Man

Why I Left You

What they said about Selima Hill's poetry:

"Every page reveals her unique ability to invert the world and shake it, until it reveals its truth" - Kathleen Jamie & Maurice Riordan (PBS Bulletin)

"She is truly gifted. She invests mundane things with visionary, delirious brilliance." - Graham Swift (Sunday Times)

"Hill is a unique voice in British poetry, handling central subjects with wit, metaphorical beauty, and deep clarity. Her two most characeristic features, the off-the-wall images, and no-holds-barred straight talk, work flawlessly together." " - Ruth Padel & Sean O'Brien (PBS Bulletin)

Lights! Camera! Action! Poetry!
 
Nothing But The Film Poem is a new podcast from the Scottish Poetry Library which will be released into the wild 3 times per year. In this first episode Sam Tongue from SPL meets poetry filmmaker Steve Smart. They talk film poems - or poetry films - just what are they? - and discuss some interesting examples.
 
Poetry films mentioned:

 

Do not go gentle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOZjrkfWIlM

 

La Plage by Alastair Cook

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/filmpoem-4-la-plage/

 

Acknowledgements

https://www.arvideriksson.com/acknowledgements

 

Additional Resources

 

Poetry Film Workshop web page (wide variety of many poetry film related resources)
https://artsci.co.uk/poetryfilmworkshop/

 

Charles Olsen’s 2023 essay on ‘How to film a poem’
https://newsroom.co.nz/2023/06/13/how-to-film-a-poem/

 

Helen Dewberry’s book ‘How to make a Poetry Film (a handbook for poets)’

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/helendewbery/how-to-make-a-poetry-film/

Regular podcast host Samuel Tongue, after a meetup with the Friends of the SPL group, rolls up his sleeves and gets thinking about two poems by Nick Makoha from his much acclaimed and award-listed 2025 masterpiece, The New Carthaginians (Penguin).

What they said about The New Carthaginians:

"A dizzying experience... like Dante entering hell through a rip in the universe, Makoha enters history, accompanied not by Virgil but by a Black Icarus with a microchip for a mouth, and the shade of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat" - Philip Terry (Guardian)

"A moving collection of entangled histories. Makoha’s poems break, cut, scratch and sample with heightened language to remake and renew the boundaries of myth. Do not sleep on The New Carthaginians - Raymond Antrobus

"In this book, Nick Makoha has found an otherworldly, visionary voice and diction that arrest you from the first page and never let you go." - Jason Allen-Paisant

"Profound, sheer originality... a tantalising jigsaw puzzle of a book" - Tristram Fane-Saunders (Telegraph)

Winner of all three Forward Prizes for poetry, Robin Robertson has had seven collections of poetry published and holds the distinction of writing the only poem ever nominated for the Booker Prize: his epic 2018 work The Long Take.

"Robertson's emotional terrain is difficulty and guilt; often he writes as if his poems have arisen from a pact with the devil. The poems are clear-lined, sometimes hard-edged, and meticulously worked." - Deryn Rees-Jones

"The genius of this Scots poet is for finding the sensually charged moment ... and depicting it in language that is simultaneously spare and ample, and reminiscent of early Heaney or Hughes." - New Yorker

Regular podcast host Samuel Tongue, with the Friends of the SPL group, rolls up his sleeves and gets under the bonnet of two vintage Robin Robertson poems:

Cat, Failing

Swimming In the Woods