I have just got back from StAnza poetry festival in St Andrews, Scotland (where I went to university in my youth). It is always a nostalgia trip to go back there but also very enriching poetry-wise. I like the fact that the festival always has a wide mix with both online and in person events – readings, workshops, a lecture, poetry walks, poetry films, music, open mic. The only downside for anyone attending in person was finding a quiet spot to take part in any online event. I was lucky in that the guest house where I stayed had a sitting room, so I was able to take part in two workshops online on the first day, one with Marjorie Lotfi and one with Fife Writes.  

I was pleased to find a moment to talk to Marjorie as I have been using some of the poems from her publications for my workshops ‘From Home to Home’. The next workshop is fully booked and takes place Friday 15 March. She also gave a moving reading with Hannah Lavery on the final day – reading an exchange of letters about ‘being women and poets of colour in Scotland’. Stewed Rhubarb has published the pamphlet of these writings: ‘The World May Be The Same’. 

I enjoyed a poetry walk in the botanical gardens, which I had not visited before. Some poets from a collective of twelve women poets were reading poems inspired by Edinburgh’s West Port Garden. The subsequent publication is Spaces Open published by Main Point Books. I was also due to go on Alyson Hallett’s poetry walk on the Sunday but decided against as my ankle was playing up. However, I bought her pamphlet End of the Glacier, recently published by the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust and inspired by paintings by Barns-Graham who split her life between St Andrews and St Ives.  It turns out that Alyson was once poet-in-residence for the Causley Trust. I contacted her and she gave me permission to share an extract of one of the poems in the pamphlet, ‘Suspended Ice’. The first stanza of describes the sea: 

there’s a single word
in Cornish, glas
for a colour that runs
from green to blue
through purple to grey

The following stanzas go on to consider ‘when water’s frozen’ and the glacier is described as ‘a carnival of shapes/and sounds where prisms/perfume the air’. In a later poem ‘Glacier Nocturne’, Alyson writes ‘Ice is unstoppably musical’. I certainly enjoyed the colour, light and movement in this pamphlet. 

The festival had a strong international as well as Scottish flavour and included two Moroccan poets reading in Arabic. As a linguist in the past who speaks a little Arabic, this was a test for me! However, the poetry was in classical Arabic so that was more difficult.  Many poets mentioned the situation in Gaza and the StAnza lecture by Jason Allen-Paisant was very thought-provoking, asking us to consider the challenge of writing poetry in times of conflict. He asked whether ‘poetry helped us to feel’ (having said that an Arabic meaning of ‘poetry’ was ‘feeling’). One festival highlight for me was the reading by Juana Adcock from her forthcoming book about the US/Mexico border, ‘I Sugar the Bones’ to be published by Outspoken Press in the autumn. I loved the way she intermingled Spanish with English, sometimes setting up a juxtaposition in meaning when doing so. 

Of course, inevitably, I bought a lot of books and also took notes of all the sessions, so I have a lot to read and reflect upon. I appreciated getting to know poetry voices I had not come across before and chatting to new acquaintances as well as catching up with friends – everything a good festival facilitates! You can hear and see a selection of some material from the 2024 festival (including writing prompts, poetry films and a recording of the live event ‘Poets for Palestine’ (the latter is up for two weeks) on StAnza’s YouTube. 

If you would like to contact me to comment or follow up, please send me an email via the contact box on my website . You can also contact me to buy a signed copy my pamphlets 

Sleeping Under Clouds (Clayhanger Press, 2023) and A City Waking Up (Dempsey and Windle, 2020). Palewell Press will publish my third pamphlet ‘Once There Was Colour’ 27 September 2024.