PIG UPDATE #17
28th of September 2025
It is National Poetry Day on Thursday, 2 October. The event has been running annually on the first Thursday of October for more than 30 years. Each year, the organisation behind it, the charity Forward Arts Foundation (which also runs the Forward Prizes for Poetry), organises events, campaigns and resources to raise the profile of poetry and poets alike. The event has a different theme every year and this year's is 'play'. Despite the fact that much of the related activities are targeted at school children, its still a lovely opportunity to celebrate the craft and creativity that goes into so many powerful, touching, delightful, strange and wonderful poems. In this context, I was particularly happy to see that the next two weeks offer more than the usual amount of writing workshops. It's like the universe is telling us to pick up that pen and get writing...
Events (29 September to 12 October 2025)
After a quiet Monday and Tuesday, it is once again the Poet's Corner at Hillhead Bookclub that is kicking off the poetry week in Glasgow. And that's despite the fact that the weekly open mic night has moved from its previous slot on Mondays to Wednesday (1 October). This week's theme is celebrating the Argyle Street Ash, Glasgow's recent winner of the UK Tree of the Year. Got some tree-related poetry? This is your chance to shine; sign up begins at 7:30pm for an 8pm start.
On National Poetry Day (Thursday, 2 October), you are invited to Glasgow's Great Big Poetry Party. St Mungo's Mirrorball is celebrating its 20th anniversary at the CCA with a huge open mic event and readings. The event is designed to bring the community together and is completely free. Make sure to book your place though, as it might be booked up pretty quickly. The same night, Sean Wai Keung is running a poetry workshop specifically targeting mixed race/bi-/multi-racial people. The workshop takes its cue from this year's National Poetry Day's theme and explores poetry as play. It sounds fantastic, so if you or someone you know fits the bill make sure to pass it on! The regular Dove Cottage Poets writing group is also meeting on Thursday afternoon. It's a hybrid session organised by Wordsworth Grasmere and you can join the group via Zoom.
The Creative Conversations series by the University of Glasgow's Creative Writing department is back! On Monday, 6 October, the team will be joined by the brilliant Canadian poet Christian Bök. If you are someone who enjoys experimental or conceptual poetry, you really shouldn't miss this. I am a huge admirer of his work and will make sure to join via Zoom in my lunch break. In the evening, the Old Toll Bar on the Southside opens its doors for the monthly Candlelight Poetry Open Mic. For £20, you can alternatively join an online writing workshop led by award-winning poet Julia Copus. Under the headline 'Mining the Classics' she has put together a playful and informative workshop that explores the various ways you can rethink and respond to the classics.
Tuesday, 7 October is jam-packed with poetry. Flourish Open Mic at McChuills Bar in Merchant City is back after its little late-summer break. The team is now going to run their monthly event on the first Tuesday of every month. Reading slots might be a bit limited this month, so do reach out beforehand if you want to read your work. Another open mic alternative for the same night is Crisp Packet Poetry at Vics Cafe and Bar in Garnethill. The team behind the potato-themed poetry night have announced that they are keen to foreground experimental poetics and performances which work at the intersection of text and other disciplines over the next few months, so if this is your cup of tea, make sure to put Crisp Packet in your diary. A home-based alternative is on offer via the National Centre for Writing. Together with Strangers Press, the organisation is presenting an online reading to celebrate the publication of a new Japanese chapbooks series. The event will showcase translations of three emerging poets from Japan.
Poet's Corner at Hillhead Bookclub is back on Wednesday, 8 October, as is SpeakEasy at Adrian's Bar on Victoria Road. This month's iteration features the brilliant Katie Ailes - one of Scotland's best performance poets. Well worth the trip to the Southside, I am sure. At the CCA, you will have a chance to hear readings from the highly anticipated new poetry collection by Kestral Gaian. The new volume is a 'poetic journey through the London Underground' and took five years to complete. The day also offers two online events: a writing workshop by the Writing School which explores different modes of communication and direct address, as well as the free online launch event of the Poetry Review's autumn edition. The event will include readings by Safa Khatib, Matthew Dickman, Joelle Taylor, Claudine Toutoungi and Safia Elhillo.
On Thursday, 9 October, Good Press in Merchant City presents a joint reading event by the Nigerian American writer and performer Funto Omojola and Glasgow's Adrian Howard, with Nat Raha joining what is promising to be a really interesting conversation. Highly recommended is also the online workshop by Meredith Macleod and Ruby Lawrence (from Crisp Packet Poetry) that same night. Under the title 'Jagged Little Pills', the workshop will explore the human-medication relationship. And its free of charge! Although you might need to hurry to secure your place. Lastly, you also have a chance to join an online poetry workshop which is part of the Winchester Poetry Festival. Forward Prize winner Will Harris will lead a workshop on homonyms, errors, and orthographic deviance and what counts as correct in poetry when we are free to invent completely new rules. Tickets for this one are £20.
Also part of the Winchester Poetry Festival, is the online event with readings by Diane Seuss, Mora Arshi and Luke Kennard on Friday, 10 October. For £6, you are promised 1.5h of poetic delights.
Likewise intriguing is the line-up for a similar Winchester Poetry Festival online event on Sunday night (12 October). This time, you are offered readings by Fiona Benson, Richard Scott and Oluwaseun Olayiwola. Again, £6 will get you through the virtual door.
Opportunities
Today's pick from among the long list of opportunities currently on the PIG website:
You have two more days to be part of the Great Big Glasgow Poem project. To celebrate Glasgow's 850th birthday, Glaswegians are invited to co-author a poem together by completing the line 'My Glasgow is...' Submissions close on 30 September.
New Writing Scotland is still open for submissions for its annual volume until 31 October. New Writing Scotland publishes works by Scots (by birth, upbringing or inclination) as well as writers who live in Scotland. It is published by the Association for Scottish Literature and includes a wide range of forms of writing. Successful contributors are paid a minimum of £50.
Issue 101 of Oxford Poetry is currently accepting submissions. As the oldest dedicated poetry magazine in the UK, it is certainly one worth submitting to. The deadline for the current submission window is 31 October. The next window is likely to open in early spring.
Likewise still running until 31 October is the open call for experimental live poetry to be featured in the 2026 VERVE Poetry Festival in Birmingham. In addition to bragging rights, selected performers will receive a fee of £300.
We have one more opportunity with a deadline at the end of October: the Berlin Review. This is an online journal which has been running since 2023. Make sure to check out previous issues to get a feel for the kind of work the editors enjoy.
PIG Spotlight
This section is designed to shine a spotlight on a particular website, organisation or feature. For each Update, I'll pick something new - either because it is plain awesome or because it's new or really topical.
I wanted to shine today's spotlight on a recent article by Pip Thornton published on the Scottish Poetry Library website (which, btw, also has a lovely article on the 20th anniversary of St Mungo's Mirrorball). The essay documents and discusses some of the findings from her project 'Writing the Wrongs of AI' - a project that set out to explore ways we might be able to reclaim our agency 'in the midst of AI's crushing inevitability'. It is a difficult and scary topic, but one that calls for all of us to pay attention, to engage, to resist. Do check out Pip's article, and her work at large.
PIG's Poetry Pick
My choice today is something small and hopeful:
Moss
by Julian Colton
I like moss.
Patron saint of floral lost causes
you have to admire its persistence
the certain, resilient silence
such blithe, unprepossessing paradox –
utterly resolute, while so soft, so velvet.
Survives, thrives in dim, damp places:
up sides of crumbling houses
down slanted, slated, tiled roofs;
the crack in the exposed wall
shadowed lee beyond the garden gate.
Invades repointed chimney breast
colonises the neglected and deeply uprooted.
Beauty in bottle , emerald and Lincoln greens
I assume the house-proud scrub it away
fear it undermining petty foundations
prosaic aesthetes underappreciate
how sheer delight in obscurity
spreads into luxuriant poetry.
I like moss.
That's it from me today. See you in two weeks!
Love,
Annie