Opening Lines

The Scottish Poetry Library's latest podcast, with Reader in Residence Ryan Van Winkle.

An interview with J L Williams and a new track from Laertes, Why Are You Crying?, plus the stunning 'Goodbye Belfast' by Myra Davies, and a quest for great opening lines.

Listen now…

First published 12 March, 2009

About J L Williams

JL Williams was born in New Jersey and studied at Wellesley College with the poet Frank Bidart. She has been published internationally in a number of journals including Aesthetica, The Red Wheelbarrow, Cutting Teeth, The Wolf and Poetry Salzburg Review and has work coming out in Poetry Wales, Fulcrum and Stand. Since moving to Edinburgh in 2001 she has been active both as a writer and in the performing arts as a director and producer, most recently of the performance art cabaret Neue Liebe. She was awarded a grant from the Scottish Arts Council for a collaboration entitled chiaroscuro pentimenti with composer Martin Parker and artist Anna Chapman. JL Williams is currently studying at the University of Glasgow on the Creative Writing MLitt programme. She was a writer in residence at the Words Expo 2008 at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow.

About Myra Davies

Myra Davies tells stories in sound and music, print, film and video, and theatre. Davies' original milieu was academy art. In Eighties Vancouver, she worked with Skinny Puppy who introduced her to Neubauten and it was a short skip from there to Gudrun Gut. From 1991 to 2004, Davies and Gudrun Gut released a trilogy of Cds and toured as MIASMA. Davies is an eclectic artist. Her theatre piece, 'The 40 Minute Ring' (a comic dissection of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung) ran at Paddy's Playhouse in Toronto (2006). In 2007, she and Vancouver film maker, David Hauka made a short, "Alberta Ride of the Valkyrie" (Bravo!Video Fact). "Responsibility" was Davies' contribution to Toronto New Music group Toca Loca's 2008 P*P Project; a program of new Canadian works toured and recorded at CBC's Glen Gould Studios, Toronto, in March, 2008.

Myra Davies' Cities and Girls on Moabit Musik

We recommend...

Ten Poems to Change Your Life
edited by Roger Housden

Harmony, 2007

You can find a poem by Marie Howe in this anthology in the SPL.

Letters from Iceland
by W H Auden and Louis MacNeice

Faber & Faber

Should the poets or the ports have names for the sea? Find Auden's adjusted line in this book.

Baghdad Blues
by Sinan Antoon

Harbor Mountain Press (forthcoming)

Find out more...

Image: J L Williams


Poetry podcasts… Book groups… Ideas box… Newsletters… Events… Your say… About us…	Contact Search catalogue