Scottish Poetry Library Poetry Issues

New Poetry List

Check out our listings of the newest Scottish poetry and related titles.

• Download New Poetry Titles list for January-June 2007
• The latest list, for Jan-Jun 2008, is available to SPL Library Friends.

What shall we listen to…? Explore the SPL's audio collection

Something special happens when you listen to poetry – particularly in the poet's own voice. You get to hear how they ‘heard' it. All the sounds and patterns become apparent, lifting the poem off the page. Building up an extensive audio poetry collection on compact disc is an important aspect of the Scottish Poetry Library's Librarian Julie Johnstone's acquisitions policy.

At the Scottish Poetry Library we have audio holdings in several formats ranging from LPs through to CDs and DVDs. We offer the means to listen to these on the premises, but much of the collection is also available for borrowing. The collection, along with our Braille and large print items, is also an important part of our provision for our visually impaired borrowers.

Some of the LPs have wonderful cover sleeves – and carry the voices of poets like TS Eliot, Auden, and Dylan Thomas to us from the past. It's becoming increasingly difficult to play these now though, and our range of cassette tapes, so Julie has been spending a large part of the acquisitions budget recently on CD recordings. Some of these are brand new, others are rereleases of older material. She's also hoping to begin a programme of transferring some of the more vulnerable cassette recordings we already have but that aren't available any longer onto CD (copyright issues allowing).

If you're interested in building up your own collection for adults or for children, the Poetry Archive is an excellent place to start. Visit the site to taste some of these recordings that have been made over the last few years in a programme begun by Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. You can buy the CDs through the site – or directly from the Poetry Book Society's website - where you’ll find a handy list of all the recordings available.

Other major sources our Librarian has been using lately include BBC Audio who publish recordings from their archives as well as CDs to complement their The Nation's Favourite Poems book series. HarperCollins and Macmillan also publish poetry on CD, and many other publishers have one or two available. Naxos is a good place to find the classics and romantics. And the British Library sell some great archive recordings on CD as well.

Increasingly now we're seeing poetry books with CDs or DVDs tucked into the sleeves, an excellent development. Try the new In Person: 30 Poets from Bloodaxe Books which allows you to read, and watch the poets perform their poems on DVD, or the CLPE Children's Poetry prize award winning Red, Cherry Red by Jackie Kay which comes with a CD of her reading and talking about her poems.

If you want to build up your Scottish collection, the Scotsoun catalogue is a must. Visit the Lallans website to see the listing that includes a wealth of material in Scots, and poets such as Fergusson, George Campbell Hay, and William Soutar.

• Poetry Archive
• Poetry Book Society
• BBC Audio
• Bloodaxe Books
• Lallans

Benefits for Library Friends

Get a Library Friends subscription for £40 per year and receive:

• Copies of all Poetry Box tip sheets to date on joining
• 10 copies of Poetry Reader, our biannual newspaper with poetry news, SPL updates and reading ideas - individual subscribers receive 1 copy
• Discount on our 'Poetry in the Branches' librarians' training events - 50% off the course fee for up to 4 people from your library (training in 2008 and 2009)
• Full New Scottish Titles list for the last six months, listing all the Scottish poetry publications we are aware of, including ISBN and price and a brief description of each publication (only Library subscribers receive this full information listing for the most recent six month period)
• Subscribe to SPL Friends