Recent Scottish Poetry Book of the year award winner Anthony V. Capildeo is joined by James McGonigal, David Ross Linklater, Charlie Gracie, Mairi Murphy, and Donal McLaughlin.

The event has been moved to the basement of Waterstones on Sauchiehall Street.

Anthony V. Capildeo FRSL is a Trinidadian Scottish writer who believes that a genocide-free, fossil fuel-free books industry is possible. Capildeo is Professor and Writer in Residence at the University of York. Polkadot Wounds (Carcanet, 2024) received recognition as winner of the Scotland National Book Awards (Poetry Book of the Year) 2025, winner of the Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry 2025, winner of the OCM Bocas Poetry Prize for Caribbean Literature 2025, and a Telegraph Book of the Year 2024.

James McGonigal and Sukhema. Glasgow–Tokyo Line is a 100-poem hayakuin, an email renga composed back and forth between these two cities by James McGonigal and John Pazdziora. Published by Isobar Press (Tokyo), its launch at Glasgow Mirrorball coincides with February events in Tokyo and Kyoto. Both poets are academics, one of them Scottish and the other an American teaching in Japan. They share interests in Scottish and Eastern culture and religion, and their poetry combines the Scottish and American English of family life with Japanese language and orthography and older Scots. Reading John’s work at Mirrorball is Sukhema, an American poet long based in Glasgow, and a renowned teacher of meditation and renga practice.

David Ross Linklater is a poet from Balintore, Easter Ross. He is the author of five pamphlets, most recently Affection is the Broadcast (Pinhole Poetry Press, 2025). He was the winner of the 10th ? Bh?al International Writing Competition in 2023, joint-winner of the 2022 Neil Gunn Writing Competition and received a Dewar Arts Award in 2015. He has been shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Award and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. His work has appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The Dark Horse, Butcher’s Dog and bath magg. He lives in Glasgow where he works as a screen printer.@davidrosslinklater / http://www.davidlinklaterpoetry.com

A.C. Clarke has been, like Maggie Rabatski, a Makar of the Federation of Writers (Scotland). She has published six collections and seven pamphlets, two in collaboration.  A Natural Curiosity was shortlisted for the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award. She was one of four winners in the Cinnamon Press 2017 pamphlet competition with War Baby. She has twice won the Second Light long poem competition. A third collaborative pamphlet with Maggie Rabatski and the late Sheila Templeton, Chiels & Quines, was published by Seahorse Publications in December 2025.

Maggie Rabatski has two poetry pamphlets, Down From the Dance/An D?idh an Dannsa (2010} and Holding (2012), both published by New Voices Press. The former pamphlet was shortlisted in the ‘First Book’ category of the Saltire Awards, the latter short-listed for the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award. But that was a long time ago. More recently she collaborated with AC Clarke and the late Sheila Templeton in a project of writing poetry in English, Scots and Gaelic. This produced three pamphlets – Owersettin (2016) and Drochaid (2019) both published by Tapsalteerie, and Chiels & Quines (2025) published by Seahorse. She is a former Clydebuilt mentee and Makar of the Federation of Writers (Scotland).

Lesley Benzie is Aberdonian, and lives in Glasgow. She won Wigtown’s Scots Poetry Prize in 2024. Previously she received Highly Commended in Federation of Writers Scotland, Runner-up in McCash Scots Poetry Competitions and nomination for ‘writer of the year’ in the Scots Language Awards. Writing in both Scots and English, her work appears in numerous magazines/anthologies, and she has two poetry collections Fessen/Reared (Seahorse Publications) and Sewn Up. She aims to make it a hat-trick soon._