Came home buzzing: my poems are out in the world!

I came home last night from a room full of poems, friendly faces and a good dollop of community & joy, absolutely buzzing.

Not metaphorically. Properly buzzing. The sort where you're carrying the warmth of the room around with you while making a cup of herbal tea before bed, slightly surprised that the thing you've spent years working towards has actually happened. I was replaying it all while taking my makeup off.

Last night was the launch of my two poetry pamphlets, Grit and Flesh, published by Red Squirrel Press alongside new work from Chris Powici and Tim Turnbull. It was a really lovely evening.

Here in my blog, I've written a lot about literary events from the perspective of someone standing at the back of the room. The event organiser counting chairs. Wondering whether enough people would come. Thinking about how fragile small literary gatherings can feel and how much work goes into making them happen. Last night, for once, I wasn't counting empty chairs. I was noticing friends sitting in them.

Friends, fellow writers, publishing folk. People I've worked with over the years, shared workshops with. I've been so fortunate to have been encouraged by people who believed in me when I thought I was failing. Some have quietly appeared at launches and readings for years because that's what literary communities do when they're healthy. It was one of those evenings that reminded me how much of writing is actually communal, despite all the hours we spend alone at desks. Other friends sent messages and emails.

Launches are important for independent publishers, perhaps more important than people sometimes realise. They can be difficult to organise. There are venues to book, books to transport, publicity to do, schedules to juggle and all the usual worries about whether anyone will actually turn up. Financially, nobody is getting rich from poetry launches.

A launch allows a book to step out into the world properly. Readers meet writers. Writers meet readers. Conversations begin. Books find homes. The work stops being a PDF on a screen or a box of freshly delivered copies and becomes part of a living literary conversation. For independent presses, those moments matter. Beyond that, Scotland's literary scene depends on them.

Which brings me to Sheila Wakefield. Red Squirrel Press is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year, no small achievement! Independent publishing is demanding at the best of times. To sustain a press for twenty years, while consistently producing beautiful books and supporting poets across Scotland and beyond, takes an extraordinary amount of commitment.

I've admired Sheila for a long time. She's one of those people who has shaped Scottish literature through sheer persistence and belief in good work. She creates opportunities, nurtures writers. She builds connections. She somehow manages to combine professionalism with genuine warmth, which is rarer than people might think. Publishing can sometimes feel like an industry obsessed with novelty and the next big thing. What Sheila has built is something much more lasting: a literary home.

I felt genuinely honoured to have Grit and Flesh included as part of Red Squirrel's twentieth anniversary year. The books themselves are beautiful objects too. Not that you have to be a publisher and editor to notice these things, but I think it does add a layer to it. Gerry Cambridge designed the pamphlets and I have to confess to a particularly nerdy moment of happiness when I saw the typography. Anyone who spends time around publishing develops strange enthusiasms. I like fonts.

The pamphlets use Electra, which can occasionally be a little tricky to handle well. When it works, though, it works beautifully. It has a warmth and elegance that feels perfectly suited to poetry. Seeing the care that had gone into every detail made my wee publisher's heart very happy. Good design often goes unnoticed because it feels inevitable. These pamphlets feel exactly as they should.

I was a little nervous yesterday afternoon. I couldn’t quite remember when I’d actually last read my poetry aloud to a roomful. This last year, perhaps year and a half, has thrown no small measure of challenges at me and I’ve not had as many opportunities as I’d ordinarily have. The moment I had the pamphlets in my hand and felt their gentle weight, I stepped into my poet self. I’m still here.

Now for the evening itself: 

Chris Powici opened the evening reading from Dint, his new pamphlet. His poems pay close attention to the natural world and to the details that many of us move past too quickly. Listening to him read felt like being invited to slow down a little. To notice. To look properly. I think that's one of poetry's great gifts. It creates space for attention. For a little while the room became quieter, more focused. We all stepped into Chris's world and followed where the poems led.

First I read from Grit. The poems were not all written at the same time. I had gathered and curated the collection to take the reader on a bit of a journey, back in time. I grew up in southern Spain, and these poems take us there, to my childhood and adolescence, a time of first communions and later, first kisses. There is a lot of imagery relating to the world that was around me, arid landscape, salt water, almond trees. Catholicism is woven through. I was not raised as such but all my friends were, and my parents were churchgoers, and any church was a place of worship, so I was drenched in it, absorbing the doctrine from my friends without having any catechism to go with it.

Some of the poems in Grit have been around for a few years, others are newly minted for the pamphlet. I felt them really come alive together as I read them.

After that, we had a wee interval, following which I was back at the microphone – no Taylor Swift-type costume change though! – to read from Flesh. We’re still back in time with this one, but we go from my erm... "spiky" early twenties and taut visits home, when I felt I didn’t really fit in any more, to family life and vignettes, via a love poem, and navigating grief, love and desire in the chaos of family life.

They are companion pieces. I've spent so long working on them, that it's slightly strange to realise they now belong partly to readers. That's the point, of course: set them out free in the world to find people to connect with. It had been a while since I'd read my own poetry publicly. Years ago I was reading regularly, sometimes every month, occasionally every week. Life changes. My publishing work expanded and my freelance career has coalesced. I’ve written three novels, one published, one looking for a publisher, one well underway, with a first draft complete and developmental edits now underway. My children’s school, activity and social lives have broadened. I was organising events rather than appearing in them.

Last night reminded me how much I enjoy reading. There is something special about reading your own poems aloud in a room full of people. The poem I’ve been carrying around privately for years suddenly becomes shared experience. I could feel where people laughed, or the moment something landed. I discovered things about my own work simply by reading it aloud. I’ve missed that.

It also made me realise I'd quite like to do more of it. I'm hoping to organise a small run of readings and events over the coming months. I'd simply love the opportunity to take these pamphlets out into the world a little. So I’m going to reach out to some places. If you know a venue, bookshop, festival, writing group, library or literary event that might be interested, I'd genuinely love to hear from you. I'm always happiest talking books and poems. I’m happy to share a stage, run a workshop alongside it too.

The evening was rounded off by Tim Turnbull, whose wonderfully surreal poetry had the room chuckling throughout. His work moves in unexpected directions while somehow feeling entirely in control of itself. There were moments where the audience laughed together in that particular way only poetry audiences do, slightly surprised and delighted at the same time. Playful words and images: it was the perfect ending to the night.

Driving home afterwards, I found myself thinking again about the coral reef image I've used in several recent blogs. Perhaps that's because it feels increasingly true to me. Scottish literature isn't sustained by a handful of people working alone. It's built through countless interactions, through big publishers and independent publishers, festivals large and small. Also reading groups, workshops and open mic nights. Literary journals, magazines, zines both digital and analogue. And the bookshops, the wonderful gorgeous bookshops of Scotland. I love them. Edinburgh has some real gems. Note to self: maybe a wee blog series on the bookshops of Edinburgh?

People sometimes talk about literary communities as though they are created by big organisations, but they don’t. People build them. Sheila has spent twenty years helping build part of that reef. So have countless others. I've been lucky enough to spend years swimming around its edges as an editor, publisher, organiser and writer. Last night felt like a moment of growing slightly further into it myself. Not arriving, certainly not that. Just finding a slightly more confident place to stand. Or perhaps sit.

After all, I do seem to spend a lot of time thinking about chairs. Last night there were plenty of them filled. The room felt warm. The poems found listeners, friends turned up and importantly, books went home with readers. For a writer, that's a very good evening indeed.

Finally, some thank yous: Thank you to Peter Roy (aka my husband) and our boys, who have lived alongside and featured in these poems for years without having much choice in the matter.

Thank you to Wils Struthers, Laura Fyfe, Peter Burnett, Duncan Lockerbie, Marcas Mac an Tuairneir and Chris Cunningham. All of you have supported, encouraged, challenged or helped me at different points along the way to bring this work out into the light. Writing may happen alone, but writers need people.

And if you'd like to support Scottish poetry, I can thoroughly recommend a browse through the Red Squirrel Press catalogue. Yes, I'd be delighted if you bought Grit or Flesh. But if those aren't your flavour, you'll find plenty of other excellent poets there. Independent presses survive because readers keep turning up.

 The messages that arrived yesterday, and the people who turned up in person last night, reminded me how lucky I am that so many of you do show up for me. Thank you.

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