Mirrorball showcase Thursday 27th April

with headliner Sarala Estruch, supported by readings from Pip Osmond-Williams, Saskia McCracken, Catherine Eunson and Mary Thomson.

We’re looking forward to welcoming you in-person at the CCA Clubroom & live-streamed on Zoom (for Mirrorball members). CCA event: free to Mirrorball members, guests £7 (£5 concession). Thursday 27th April 2023 at 7pm

 

Sarala Estruch is a British writer, poet, and researcher. After All We Have Travelled (Nine Arches Press, January 2023), her debut full-length poetry collection, is a Poetry Book Society Spring 2023 Recommendation. Her pamphlet Say (flipped eye, 2021) was a Poetry School Book of The Year and was described as an ‘extraordinary debut’ by the Poetry Book Society. A finalist of the Primers mentorship scheme and a fellow of the Ledbury Poetry Critics programme, her poetry, creative non-fiction, and reviews have been widely published in outlets including The Poetry Review, Wasafiri, and The Guardian, and featured on BBC Radio. Sarala is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Liverpool, where she is a recipient of the JIC Davies Studentship. She lives in London.

Pip Osmond-Williams is a Glasgow-based poet and researcher from the north of England. Her writing has been published in various anthologies and magazines including New Writing Scotland, Poetry Scotland and Channel, among others.In 2021 she won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Competition for her debut pamphlet Of Algae & Grief, which was chosen as Poetry Book Society’s Spring Pamphlet Choice in 2022. She works for two charities, the Association for Scottish Literature and the Edwin Morgan Trust, and is co-editor of the forthcomingWilliam Soutar: The Complete Poetry.

Saskia McCracken is a Glasgow based writer and Editor at Osmosis Press. She is a member of 12 collective and the Victoria Writers’ Circle. Her publications include Imperative Utopia (-algia press), Cyanotypes (Dancing Girl Press), The King of Birds (Hickathrift Press) and Zero Hours (Broken Sleep Books 2022). She won the Floresta poetry prize, was longlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction prize, and was shortlisted for the Streetcake Experimental Writing Prize and Future Places Environmental Essay Prize. Her work appears in publications including Magma, Datableed, Amberflora, and Zarf, and has been anthologised by Dostoyevsky Wannabe and Spam Press. @SaskiadeRM/ saskiamccracken.wordpress.com  

Catherine Eunson has lived in Stromness, Huntly, Stirling, Edinburgh, Devon, London, Glasgow and Benbecula – where she lived with her family for 20 years and where her children went to school. She worked in arts education and therapy and community development. Her poetry has been published in various magazines, most recently in Other Worlds, An anthology of Scottish island poems. She sometimes writes in Scots and has enough Gaelic to sound like she understands more than she in fact does. One of her favourite quotations is from the BFG, ‘Words, is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life.’ 

Mary Thomson lives in Glasgow, in her 17^th home since leaving her first one, a farm in Cheshire, aged 18. Since she moved to Scotland from North Yorkshire in 2006 she has published seven pamphlets, three of which were shortlisted for the Callum Macdonald Memorial Pamphlet Award. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Scotland, Gutter magazine and other journals and she was recently awarded the Scottish Association of Writers John Muir prize for her poem ‘The Wild Atlantic Way’. She is very happy in Scotland and has no plans to move.

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April Mirrorball

We’re delighted that our next Mirrorball will feature poet Sarala Estruch, and will be held on Thursday 27th April 7pm at the CCA. More details to follow

First Mirrorball of 2023

Mirrorball Showcase – Thursday 2^nd February 7pm

Our next Mirrorball Showcase will be held in the CCA Cinema and will be live streamed on Zoom for members. We’re looking forward to a wonderful evening of poetry with award winning headliner David Kinloch supported by readings from Gerrie Fellows, Kathrine Sowerby, Ross Wilson and Saskia McCracken.

David Kinloch was brought up and educated in Glasgow. Most of his professional career was spent at the University of Strathclyde, first as a teacher of French and latterly of creative writing. He has published three pamphlets and six books of poetry, most with Carcanet. In the 1980s he co-founded and edited the literary magazine, Verse, with Robert Crawford and Henry Hart. In the noughties he set up a cultural exchange with Switzerland which ran for five years or so and helped to establish the Scottish Writers’ Centre. He also established the Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition which subsequently became a part of theEdwin Morgan Trust of which he is the current chair. He is emeritus professor of poetry at the University of Strathclyde and received a Cholmondeley Award for his work to date in 2022.https://www.davidkinloch.co.uk/

Gerrie Fellows is a walker and a poet and the poems in Uncommon Place (Shearman, 2019) explore our relationship with the shifting nature of the places we walk through. It is rooted in Scotland’s mountains and open spaces, its fenced enclosures and mined ground.Earlier collections include The Body in Space (Shearman, 2014) and Window for a Small Blue Child (Carcanet, 2007), which was shortlisted for the Sundial Scottish Poetry Book of the Year – this sequence on IVF was described by Meredith Andrea as a ‘coming to poetic terms – in the body, the mind and the ear – with ways in which technology has expanded human possibility.’ Shadow Box, also from Shearsman, is a set of poems which came out of a preoccupation with Glasgow’s Hunterian Museum and its objects. She has lived in Scotland since the 1980s but grew up in New Zealand and London. Gerrie mentored Clydebuilt poetry groups 1, 2 and 7. http://www.gerriefellows.co.uk/

Kathrine Sowerby lives in Glasgow and is the author of several chapbooks including include Unnecessarily Emphatic and Tired Blue Mountain (red ceilings press) and Margaret and Sunflower (dancing girl press). Her collections include House However (Vagabond Voices, 2018), a collection of 62 prose poems, and Tutu (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2022), a hybrid collection of writing and drawing. She has an MFA from Glasgow School of Art, an MLitt in Creative Writing from Glasgow University, a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust and has taken part in poetry translation projects in Pakistan and Latvia. Her latest book (Find Yourself) at Constant Falls, a sequence of 108 prose poems, is published by Blue Diode Press. Kathrine was a Clydebuilt 4 mentee. https://kathrinesowerby.com/

Ross Wilson’s first collection, Line Drawing (Smokestack Books) was shortlisted for the Saltire poetry book of the year in 2019 – drawing on his experiences as a low paid worker and as a schoolboy boxing champion, Wilson takes a line for a walk between production lines, life lines, sword-lines and the wafer-thin line between civilisation and barbarism. A pamphlet, Letters to Rosie (Tapsalteerie) was published in 2020. His most recent collection,Vital Signs, forthcoming from Red Squirrel Press, draws on his experiences as a father while working full-time as an Auxiliary Nurse in ICU during the pandemic. Ross was a Clydebuilt 10 mentee. Ross Wilson | Facebook

Saskia McCracken is a Glasgow based writer and Editor at  Osmosis Press. She is a member of 12 Collective and the Victoria Writers’ Circle. Her publications include Imperative Utopia (-algia press, 2021), Cyanotypes (Dancing Girl Press), The King of Birds (Hickathrift Press) and Zero Hours (Broken Sleep Books, 2022). She won the Floresta poetry prize, was longlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction prize, and was shortlisted for the Streetcake Experimental Writing Prize and Future Places Environmental Essay Prize. Her work appears in publications including Magma, Datableed, Amberflora, and Zarf, and has been anthologised by Dostoyevsky Wannabe and Spam Press. @SaskiadeRM/ saskiamccracken.wordpress.com  

Liz Lochhead birthday celebration

Our next event is a special birthday celebration for Liz Lochhead accompanied by poets Samuel Tongue and Henry Bell. It will be held on Thursday 8th December at 7pm in the Clubroom of the CCA and, for members, on Zoom. We’ll be holding our Secret Stanza Book Swap to add to the festivities – we look forward to seeing you there!

Liz Lochhead is one of Scotland’s leading poets and playwrights. She has been awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and was Scotland’s second modern Makar, succeeding Edwin Morgan. She is also one of the honorary presidents of St Mungo’s Mirrorball and will be reading as part of her 75th birthday celebrations.  Variously described as a poet, feminist playwright, translator and broadcaster, Liz Lochhead has said, ‘when somebody asks me what I do I usually say writer. The most precious thing to me is to be a poet.’ Her ground-breaking debut collection Memo for Spring was reissued this year to mark its 50th anniversary (Birlinn). Writing at a time when the landscape of Scottish poetry was male dominated, hers was a new voice, tackling subjects that resonated with readers – as it still does. Her poetry paved the way, and inspired, countless new voices including Ali Smith, Kathleen Jamie, Jackie Kay and Carol Ann Duffy. Still writing and performing today, fifty years on from her first book of poetry.

Samuel Tongue‘s collections include Sacrifice Zones (Red Squirrel, 2020) and three pamphlets: The Nakedness of the Fathers (Broken Sleep, 2022), Stitch (Tapsalteerie, 2018), and Hauling-Out (Eyewear, 2016). He received a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust in 2013 and his poems have featured widely in journals, newspapers and anthologies.  By day, he is Project Coordinator at the Scottish Poetry Library and he regularly chairs panels and workshops at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and Push the Boat Out Poetry Festival. Sam was mentored by Liz Lochhead on Clydebuilt 3 – it’s wonderful to have him reading alongside her at this event.

Henry Bell is a poet, non-fiction writer and editor living in Glasgow. He was a Clydebuilt 8 mentee and received a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust in 2019. His pamphlet, The Inner Circle (2022), is out with Stewed Rhubarb, and his recent collaboration with the photographer Angela Catlin, Still Life (2022), was published by Speculative Books. Henry is on the editorial board of Gutter Magazine. He is the biographer of John Maclean and editor of A Bird is Not a Stone, a collection of Palestinian poetry in translation. For more than a decade Liz Lochhead has been teaching him how to write.

November 16th Mirrorball Poetry

The next Mirrorball showcase is on Wednesday 16th November, at 7pm in person at the CCA and on Zoom, with Don Paterson headlining supported by Mark Russell, Morag Smith and Tracey Patrick.

Don Paterson was born in Dundee in 1963. His poetry has won many awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, all three Forward Prizes and, on two occasions, the T. S. Eliot Prize. He was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2009. He is Professor of Poetry at the University of St Andrews and, for over twenty-five years, was Poetry Editor at Picador Macmillan. He also works as a jazz musician.

Mark Russell won the 2023 erbacce poetry prize and the 2020 Magma Poetry Judge’s Prize. He has published five chapbooks/pamphlets with Red Ceilings, Kattywompus, and the tall-lighthouse. His full collections are Men Who Repeat Themselves (erbacce), Shopping for Punks (Hesterglock), and Spearmint & Rescue (Pindrop). Come to the River is due out with Beir Bua Press in early 2023. His poems have appeared in a variety of publications, including Stand, Shearsman, The Manchester Review, Tears in the Fence, Poetry Birmingham, Tentacular, The Rialto, and Blackbox Manifold. 

Morag Smith was born and brought in the North of Glasgow. Her short fiction and poetry have been published in ezines, magazines and anthologies, including Ink, Sweat and Tears, Pushing Out the Boat, Wet Grain, Poetry Ireland Review, and Gutter. She was a Mirrorball Clydebuilt mentee from 2019 – 2021. She is t]he winner of the 2021 Paisley Book Festival /Janet Coates memorial poetry prize and was highly commended in the 2021 Ginkgo prize. In Feb 2022, she published a small anthology of poetry , Daughters, Wives, Resilient Lives with Mhairi Murphy, Lesley Traynor and Kathryn Metcalfe. This (Background Noises) is her first pamphlet and she is currently working on her second.

Tracy Patrick’s first novel, Blushing is for Sinners, charting the story of a Paisley mill girl, was commended by the Saltire First Book of the Year judges 2019. She is a Clydebuilt 6 mentee of Miriam Gamble. Tracy has one poetry pamphlet, Wild Eye Fire Eye (2015), and one full length collection, Portrait (2022). She recently edited, Braw Lads are Marching Awa, Renfrewshire Poets of the Great War (2022). Her next collection, ‘Painting San Romano’, is a series of poems based on WW1 art.

Mirrorball is free to members and £7 / 5 conc. for guests on the door.

There is now a Zoom option available to members.

The William Bonar Poetry Prize 2022

William Bonar

The William Bonar Poetry Prize 2022

(Supported by St Mungo’s Mirrorball and Scotland-based publisher Red Squirrel Press.)

Submissions are now open for the second, 2022, annual poetry prize for Scottish-based poets in memory of William Bonar. This gifted and well-loved poet was the co-founder of St Mungo’s Mirrorball. He published three titles, his second pamphlet and full collection were published by Red Squirrel Press.

Eligibility

Entrants should be over 18 years old and currently based in Scotland. They should not previously have had a pamphlet or collection published by a publisher. Entry is free but restricted to one entry each year.

Process

Entries should be of 10-12 poems, must be the original work of the poet and can be in English, Scots and Gaelic. The poems should not be more than five years old and entries should be accompanied by a short biography in a single document. Email entries marked ‘The William Bonar Poetry Prize’ to jimcarruth63@gmail.com

Judges

The judges are Sheila Wakefield, Founder and Editor of Red Squirrel Press, Elizabeth Rimmer, Red Squirrel Press poet who also does some editing at the press, Eleanor Livingstone (Former Director of StAnza), Padraig MacAoidh (Gaelic judge) and Lynnda Wardle, writer and William Bonar’s partner.

Prize

The winner will receive the following:

·       Publication of a pamphlet by Red Squirrel Press

·       30 free copies and 50% discount on unlimited further copies

·       Editorial support in developing their pamphlet from poet, ‘The Dark Horse’ founder, editor, essayist, typesetter and designer Gerry Cambridge who is Red Squirrel Press in-house typesetter and designer.

Closing Date

The Closing date is 31^st December 2022 and the winner is expected to be announced on 17^th February 2023 which would have been William Bonar’s 70^th birthday.

Last year’s winner of the William Bonar Poetry Prize (2021) was Morag Smith, and she will read from her winning pamphlet at St Mungo’s Mirrorball on Wednesday 16th November 2022.

November showcase

Alycia Pirmohamed headlines with Literature Across Frontiers & Tapsalteerie showcase on 3rd November

Headliner Alycia Pirmohamed will be reading from her much anticipated new collection and she will be joined by poets Rob A Mackenzie, Niall O’Gallacher, Jitka Bret Srbová, Ondřej Lipár and Olga Stehlíkováof the Literature Across Frontiers translation project which brought together Czech and Scottish poets over the last year.   

We will also showcase leading Scottish publisher Tapselteerie with readings from Hamish Whyte, James McGonigal, Ann Mackinnon, Finola Scott and Juana Adcock.

Date: Thursday 3^rd November

Time: 7pm-9pm (doors open at 6.45pm)

Location: CCA Clubroom (wheelchair accessible) & on Zoom

Free to members / guests £7 (£5 conc)

Literature Across Frontiers

Literature Across Frontiers Translation Project

The year-long project, supported by the Edwin Morgan Trust and the Czech Literary Centre, and organised by Literature Across Frontiers, brings together Czech and Scottish poets to explore each other’s work through translation and learn about the context in which each of them writes. The participants are Niall O’Gallagher, Ondřej Lipár, Rob Mackenzie, Alycia Pirmohamed, Jitka N. Srbová and Olga Stehlíková and the project is facilitated by Literature Across Frontiers director Alexandra Büchler, herself a poetry translator and series editor of Arc Publications’ bilingual anthologies of poetry in translation between 2006 and 2016. 

Literature Across Frontiers developed its residential workshops in cooperation with the Scottish Poetry Library and the then director Robyn Marsack in the early 2000s to encourage closer connections between poets writing in less widely spoken languages. The very first workshop was held in Scotland and since then they have organised more than a hundred workshops with partners across Europe and beyond, fostering lasting creative relationships and promoting the art of poetry translation.

The project consists of a series of virtual workshops followed by in-person encounters in the Czech Republic and Scotland, where the poets will showcase their work in poetry festivals in autumn 2022.

Alycia Pirmohamed is the author of Another Way to Split Water, a new collection published by Polygon Books in 2022. Her chapbooks include Hinge (ignitionpress), Faces that Fled the Wind(BOAAT Press), and the collaborative essay Second Memory, co-authored by Pratyusha (Guillemot Press and Baseline Press). Alycia is currently a postdoctoral fellow at IASH, University of Edinburgh, and she previously studied creative writing at the University of Oregon and the University of Edinburgh. She is the co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network and a co-organiser of the Ledbury Poetry Critics Program. In 2020, she won the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Find her online at alycia-pirmohamed.com and on twitter @a_pirmohamed.

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Ondřej Lipár is a poet, journalist, and photographer. He has published two books of poetry, Skořápky(Nutshells, 2004) and Komponent (Component, 2014). For more than a decade he has been cooperating with the leading Czech literary publisher Éditions Fra. He was chair of the Czech Writers’ Association between 2019 and 2021, and he currently works as Managing Editor of the Czech Vogue.

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Rob A. Mackenzie is from Glasgow and lives in Leith. He is reviews editor for Magma Poetry magazine and has co-edited the magazine on four occasions. He runs literary publishing house, Blue Diode Press. He has had three full collections published, The Opposite of Cabbage (2009) The Good News(2013) and The Book of Revelation (2020), and two pamphlets, The Clown of Natural Sorrow (2005) and Fleck & the Bank (2012). His poems, reviews and articles have appeared in The Dark Horse, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Gutter, New Writing Scotland, Poetry London, Poetry Review, Shearsman and various other magazines and anthologies. His work has been featured three times in the Scottish Poetry Library’s annual list of 20 Best Scottish Poems.

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Niall O’Gallagher is a Gaelic poet. He was born on the west coast of Scotland and educated at the University of Glasgow. A BBC journalist, he has worked as a correspondent in Edinburgh and London and reported on European affairs for Eòrpa, From Our Own Correspondent and Our World. He is the author of three poetry collections with CLÀR, most recently Fo Bhlàth (‘Flourishing’), shortlisted for the Derick Thomson Prize for Gaelic poetry book of the year in 2021. Often a love poet, his work is characterised by an interest in poetic form, whether the strict metres of formal Gaelic poetry or structures inherited from the European tradition. His poems have been translated into English, Irish, Occitan and Welsh. His Selected Poems, with facing English translations by Peter Mackay and Deborah Moffatt, will be published by Francis Boutle of London in 2022. He lives in Ayrshire, Scotland, with his wife and their two children.

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Jitka Bret Srbová is a poet and journalist. From 2006 to 2011 she was the editor-in-chief of the online literary almanac Wagon. She currently contributes to the fortnightly literary journal Tvar. She has published the poetry collections Někdo se loudá po psím (Someone is Hanging Around like a Dog, 2011), Světlo vprostřed těla (The Light in the Centre of the Body, 2013), Les (Forest, 2016) and Svět: (The World:, 2019). Her work has been translated into a number of European languages including a collection published in German. She is currently President of the Czech Writers’ Association and lives in Hořovice, a town half-way between Prague and Plzeň.

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Olga Stehlíková works as a freelance writer, editor and critic with a focus on contemporary Czech literature. She has founded the Ravt on-line magazine (www.itvar.cz/ravt), she moderates literary programmes in Czech Broadcasting and works as book editor. She has put together dozens of books of poetry and prose for various Czech publishing houses and her poetry has appeared in many Czech and foreign literary magazines. Her debut collection Týdny (Weeks, 2014) won the Magnesia Litera Book Prize for poetry. Her second collection Vejce/Eggs (Couplets), was released in a unique arrangement in November 2017, along with an LP with Tomas Braun’s music. Her third book of poetry is Vykřičník jak stožár (Exclamation Mark High as a Pole, 2018). Her poems have been translated into nine languages.

Whyte, McGonigal, McKinnon, Scott and Adcock

TAPSALTEERIE showcase

Envy the Seasons – A wide-ranging collection of haiku (& haiku-like) poetry by Hamish Whyte, Iain Maloney and James McGonigal.

Hamish Whyte is an Edinburgh-based poet, editor and publisher. He has edited many anthologies of Scottish literature, runs Mariscat Press, and is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow.

James McGonigal is a poet, editor and occasional critic. He has had four pamphlet collection published with Mariscat Press and two full collections by Red Squirrel. Born in Dumfries but with ancestral connections to Aberdeenshire, he now lives and gardens by the Antonine Wall, north-east of Glasgow.

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Modren Makars: Yin Bringing the work of three exciting contemporary poets together in each volume, the Tapsalteerie Modren Makars series showcase the richness, diversity and power of the Scots tongue, and have been designed to provide an essential introduction to the best in contemporary Scots language poetry.

Ann MacKinnon is a poet and retired teacher who’s work has been widely published in magazines, newspapers and anthologies. She was a McCash runner-up in 2017 and a winner in 2018. In 2014 she was a Scottish Book Trust New Writer for her Scots poetry.

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Finola Scott is a retired teacher and well-known performance poet, perhaps Scotland’s only slam-winning granny. She has performed her poems at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, St Giles Cathedral, Rosslyn Chapel, the Scottish Parliament, and Kelvingrove Art Gallery.

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Vestigial In September 2020, Rodge Glass of Strathclyde University commissioned acclaimed poet invited Juana Adcock to write a poem in response to Alasdair Gray’s Lanark, with the support of the Alasdair Gray Archive. The result is Vestigial, a series of poems and texts that explore vestigial traces – of loss, identity, memory, human contact and urban life. Juana Adcock is a Mexican-born, Scotland-based poet and translator who works in both English and Spanish. Her poems and translations have been widely published, and her English-language debut poetry collection, Split (Blue Diode Press), was a Poetry Book Society Choice and was included in the Guardian’s Best Poetry of 2019. She has performed at numerous literary festivals internationally.

Clydebuilt 15

St Mungo’s Mirrorball is delighted to announce the mentor and mentees for Clydebuilt 15, funded by the Edwin Morgan Trust through The Second Life Awards 2022. 

The mentor is Miriam Gamble

The mentees are: Carlos Llaza, Jacob O’Sullivan, Rachel Rankin and Stuart Rawlinson

Miriam Gamble

MENTOR

Miriam Gamble is a poet and essayist from Northern Ireland. She’s published three collections of poems with Bloodaxe Books: The Squirrels Are Dead (2010), Pirate Music (2014) and What Planet (2019). The Squirrels Are Dead won a Somerset Maugham Award; What Planet received the 2020 Pigott Poetry Prize. Miriam lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh and has been working, most recently, on a volume of personal/lyric essays. 

MENTEES

Carlos Llaza

Carlos Llaza (Arequipa, Peru) is a writer, translator and early career researcher. His pamphlets Brame el fuego and Naturaleza muerta con langosta, both in Spanish, were published in 2009 and 2018, respectively. His poems and translations have appeared in journals and magazines such as Burns Chronicle (Edinburgh), Circumference (New York), Estación Poesía (Seville), OcultaLit (Madrid), Letras Libres (Mexico City), or Periódico de Poesía (Mexico City), amongst others. He is currently finishing a PhD in Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow, where he also works as a tutor. His project focuses on translating a selection of Robert Burns’s poems and songs into Spanish, and researching the role literary translation has played in the reception of Burns and his work in Ibero-America. He lives in Plains, Airdrie.

Jacob O’Sullivan

Jacob O’Sullivan lives in Leith, Edinburgh, where he works in Museum Development and organises a regular ‘Poetry & Pints’ evening. He was born in Leicestershire and grew-up in Castletown, Isle of Man. His poems have appeared in Butcher’s Dog, The North, Ram Eye Press and The Open Ear. 

Rachel Rankin

Rachel Rankin is a poet from Coatbridge, currently based in Leith. She received a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in 2019 and a Dewar Arts Award in 2017. Rachel was shortlisted for the 2017 Jane Martin Poetry Prize and is currently shortlisted for the 2022 Aurora Prize for Writing. Her work has been published in Magma, Gutter, The Scotsman and Multiverse: An International Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry, among others, and she has performed her work both nationally and internationally. Rachel also works as a translator from Norwegian and is currently pursuing a PhD which explores the feasibility of various approaches to poetry translation.

Stuart Rawlinson

Stuart Rawlinson (he/him) is a writer living in Glasgow, where he works as a software developer. Poems of his have been published by Gutter, SPAMzine, Fruit Journal, Pilot Press, and others. His micro-chapbook main args is available as part of the Ghost City Press 2021 Summer Series. He is currently working on a series of poems exploring the influences and languages of technology.

Mirrorball membership

St Mungo’s Mirrorball is looking to recruit some new members to the fold. Now in its eighteenth year the Mirrorball is a poetry network that runs a regular events programme, development opportunities and a weekly newsletter highlighting events and competitions that are of interest to members and also highlighting members successes as well. Our events are run in the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow but for the first time ever we will provide face to face and online options for every event. What this means is that we are now in a position to welcome members from much further afield. If you are interested in joining and want more information then email Vicki Husband (membership secretary) vickihusband@hotmail.com  

Membership fees for Mirrorball remain at £20 for the year Autumn 2022 to Spring 2023. Please note the Mirrorball does not want to exclude anyone from membership for financial reasons, so if you are not in a position to pay this year or can only afford a reduced fee, you can still be a member as your membership is what gives the network its life and purpose.

Look forward to hearing from you   

Jim Carruth  (chair)

National Poetry Day celebration

Two Minutes’ Pandemonium for Hugh MacDiarmid

with Alan Riach, James Conor Patterson, Sheila Templeton & Mirrorball members

 Thursday 6^th October 7pm-9pm (doors open at 6.45pm)

at the CCA Clubroom & Zoom

Tickets: £7 or £5 conc. on the door / Mirrorball members free

Ages: 18+ Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible

Mirrorball’s National Poetry Day event will be held at the CCA Glasgow, in the Clubroom. For those unable to attend in-person we will be providing an opportunity for Mirrorball members to watch the event live on Zoom.

This year Scotland marks the centenary of one of its greatest – and still most controversial – poets. Erupting from the pen of his creator C.M. Grieve in 1922, Hugh MacDiarmid continues to provoke strong responses. Sublime lyric poet, flyter, provocateur – MacDiarmid was and is all these things; and many more besides. As he puts it in A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle: I’ll ha’e nae hauf-way hoose, but aye be whaur Extremes meet – it’s the only way I ken To dodge the curst conceit o’ bein’ richt That damns the vast majority o’ men.  In keeping with the St Mungo’s Mirrorball tradition of celebrating the achievement of a great poet for National Poetry Day, on 6 October 2022 we will be gathering at the CCA to share favourite MacDiarmid poems and explore his contradictory legacy. MacDiarmid is a writer who still excites a strong critical response – hostility even – in some quarters. We believe that this is something to consider alongside the passion so many of us have for his writing. The event will feature a talk from Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow and a leading MacDiarmid expert. Northern Irish poet James Conor Patterson and contemporary Scots poet Sheila Templeton, will read from their own work, and Mirrorball members will also share some of their favourite MacDiarmid poems.

James Conor Patterson is from Newry, north of Ireland and currently lives in London. He writes in a hybrid dialect of Newry street and Scots and Irish-inflected English. James won an Eric Gregory Award for bandit country (Picador, 2019) and a selection of his poems was recently shortlisted for The White Review Poet’s Prize. His journalism and non-fiction have been published in The Guardian, i-D and The Irish Times among others. James is editor of the anthology The New Frontier: Writing from the Irish Border (New Island, 2021).

Sheila Templeton comes from Aberdeenshire, currently lives in Glasgow and writes in Scots and English. She has been Makar of the Federation of Writers Scotland and was nominated in 2020 for a Scots Writer of the Year Award. Sheila’s poetry has won prizes in several competitions…the McCash Scots Language, the McLellan and Neil Gunn Poetry awards. She won the 2021 McCash Competition with her poem ‘This morn’. Sheila’s latest full collection is Clyack (Red Squirrel Press, 2021); and a collaborative anthology in Doric Scots,Norlan Lichts (Rymour Books), was published in 2022.