Tapsalteerie

16/10/2025

*** Dwell Time pre-orders are now open! ***

In but two short weeks we'll be unleashing Taylor's mighty new poetry book on the world. Order your copies now through the Tapsalteerie website (link in bio!) to make sure it arrives hot off the press and just in time for that official publication date.

And if you're around in Glasgow on the evening of Tuesday 28th October then pop by the Alchemy Expreiment on Byres Road for the official launch party, along with Stewart Sanderson and his new book 'Weathershaker'. These two are amongst the best poets writing in Scotland today so it really is one not to miss.

Do get in touch if you would like to review or otherwise write about Taylor's book too - we have review copies on hand and ready for yr perusal!

"I almost laughed aloud in admiration and delight at the sheer craft of Strickland’s tough, roiling music." - Anthony Vahni Capildeo

*Pre-order for publication date of 01 November 2025* Dwell Time, the full-length debut collection from award-winning poet Taylor Strickland, begins from the idea that ‘dwelling’ requires both place and the experience of ‘being-in-the-world’. In taking us from the US to Scotland to Portugal, ...

10/10/2025

TAPSALTEERIE EDINBURGH DOUBLE BOOK LAUNCH! 🚀🚀

Celebrate the publication of Weathershaker by Stewart Sanderson and Dwell Time by Taylor Strickland, hosted by Medha Singh and featuring readings from the poets

Friday 14.11.25. 6.30-8pm. Free. FRUITMARKET GALLERY. 🍒

Weathershaker begins with meanings lost, recovered and imagined. Digging into the material and textual record through place names, fictional histories, translations and fragmentary texts, Sanderson's second full-length collection speaks of the past from an unsteady present.
In a small country of big winds and shifting light, where the weather itself is shaken by our actions as a species, these poems turn towards a contingent future while seeking meaning gone astray.

Stewart Sanderson is a poet from Glasgow, who has published and performed widely in the UK and internationally. He is the author of the pamphlets Fios (2015) and An Offering (2018), as well as the book-length collection The Sleep Road (2021) - all published by Tapsalteerie. Three times shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award, his work has also been recognised by accolades including an Eric Gregory Award and Robert Louis Stevenson and Jessie Kesson Fellowships.

Dwell Time, the full-length debut collection from award-winning poet Taylor Strickland, begins from the idea that ‘dwelling’ requires both place and the experience of ‘being-in-the-world’. In taking us from the US to Scotland to Portugal, Strickland interrogates this central notion, along with ideas of non-place and environment, to explore our contemporary experience of love, language, technology, and spirituality. Ultimately these are poems that advocate for a world against isolation, one in which we go beyond our own witness to embrace another’s, and shrink the distance between us.

Taylor Strickland is a poet and translator from the US. His book Dastram/Delirium was 2023 Scottish Poetry Book of the Year and a PBS Translation Choice. His work has featured in Poetry London, the TLS, New Statesman, and more. His poetry has been The Scotsman Poem of the Week, shortlisted for several prizes, and translated into Irish and Italian. ‘The Low Road’ was adapted by American composer, Andrew Kohn, and performed in Orkney. Nine Whales, Tiree, a filmpoem made with filmmaker Olivia Booker and composer Fee Blumenthaler, was selected for Bloomsday and Glasgow Cathedral festivals, among others. He lives in Glasgow, with his wife, Lauren, and daughter, Eimhir.

Book here:

https://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/event/book-launch-weathershaker-by-stewart-sanderson-and-dwell-time-by-taylor-strickland/

04/10/2025

Come join us as we celebrate the publication of Weathershaker by Stewart Sanderson and Dwell Time by Taylor Strickland, two new poetry books from Tapsalteerie.

These are two of our favourite poets writing in Scotland at the moment, so we couldn't be more thrilled to welcome them along to The Alchemy Experiment to read from their brilliant new books. Follow the link to get your free tickets and we'll see you there!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poetry-book-launch-stewart-sanderson-taylor-strickland-tickets-1757518397839

***

Weathershaker begins with meanings lost, recovered and imagined. Digging into the material and textual record through place names, fictional histories, translations and fragmentary texts, Sanderson’s second full-length collection speaks of the past from an unsteady present. In a small country of big winds and shifting light, where the weather itself is shaken by our actions as a species, these poems turn towards a contingent future while seeking meaning gone astray.

“In this playful, engaging collection, Sanderson displays his natural gift for bringing the life back into words and the words back into life. His poems seethe with a mischievous intelligence – whether it’s a poem generator, a handful of secrets from the God of Silence, or the nine mysterious definitions of the eponymous Weathershaker, he fuses skill, imagination and a ruthless intelligence into something quite unforgettable.” – John Glenday

***

'Dwell Time', the full-length debut collection from award-winning poet Taylor Strickland, begins from the idea that ‘dwelling’ requires both place and the experience of ‘being-in-the-world’. In taking us from the US to Scotland to Portugal, Strickland interrogates this central notion, along with ideas of non-place and environment, to explore our contemporary experience of love, language, technology, and spirituality. Ultimately these are poems that advocate for a world against isolation, one in which we go beyond our own witness to embrace another’s, and shrink the distance between us.

"Taylor Strickland’s Dwell Time is ardent and disarming. This is a deeply personal collection that is amazingly intellectually alive. The themes of heritage and transience, shared by many people today, speak to the heart, with the delicacy of almost-silences and birdsong. Yet I almost laughed aloud in admiration and delight at the sheer craft of Strickland’s tough, roiling music. You’ll not only follow these poems, but experience them. They transport the reader into the sensuous instants of a weave of experience, from the Neolithic to the contemporary." – Anthony Vahni Capildeo

29/09/2025

Now's The Day, Now's The Hour: Poems for John Maclean (2023)

Edited by Henry Bell & Joey Simons, Now's The Day, Now's The Hour collects together poems and songs in tribute to the revolutionary life and legacy of John Maclean (1879-1923) on the centenary of his death.

'We are out for life and all that life can give us.' (John Maclean)

A century ago, Maclean stood out as the foremost working-class leader on Red Clydeside, known across the world for his opposition to the First World War. A committed communist, he taught Marxism to thousands of workers, built a mass strike movement, stood with anti-colonial revolts, founded the first political party for Scottish independence, and was jailed and force-fed by the British government. He emerged from prison to be greeted by 100,000 people in Glasgow shouting 'Victory to the Russian revolution, victory to the German revolution, victory to the British revolution!'

Maclean's legacy, and the tragedy of his martyrdom, has long inspired Scotland's greatest poets and songwriters. Featuring new work from Jackie Kay, Juana Adcock, William Letford, Josie Giles and others, alongside the classic songs and poems of Hamish Henderson, Hugh MacDiarmid, Edwin Morgan, Sorley Maclean and Mary Brooksbank, this book is a celebration of Maclean, and a call to arms to keep fighting for a world held in common.

Order yours here:

https://www.tapsalteerie.co.uk/product/nows-the-day-nows-the-hour-poems-for-john-maclean/

20/09/2025

Sleekit: Contemporary poems in the Burns stanza, edited by Lou Selfridge.

Sleekit—an anthology of contemporary poems in the Standard Habbie, collects recent poetry in the form by some of the most exciting poets writing in Scotland today. Here are poems which conform to the structure of the Burns stanza alongside poems which seek to stretch and twist it; poems in Scots, English, and JavaScript; poems on topics as diverse as buffalypso, s*x toys, and Robert Burns himself. The work in Sleekit shows the vital role the Burns stanza plays in contemporary Scottish poetry.

Sleekit is edited by Lou Selfridge and features poetry by Katie Ailes, Craig Aitchison, Janette Ayachi, Stephen Dornan, Roshni Gallagher, Harry Josephine Giles, W.N. Herbert, David Kinloch, Simon Lamb, lain Morrison, Jeda Pearl, Calum Rodger, Stewart Sanderson, Gill Shaw, Maria Sledmere, Taylor Strickland & Kate Tough.

Pick up your copy here: https://www.tapsalteerie.co.uk/product/sleekit/

12/09/2025

Fans of ‘Languishing, Cute’, published earlier this year, don’t miss Ian Macartney reading at AFK SPAM zine & Press in Glasgow this coming Sunday 14th September. The series is co-curated by his co-author, Maria Sledmere. 💚💚💚

Summer may be over but do not fear.. AFK returns at this Sunday 14th September and this time it’s a special collab with our good pal, the micropress Sincere Corkscrew. For this one we’re taking a hybrid/ prose/ performance slant. Think words, drones, electronics, a celtic flair.

Free entry. Doors and start time slightly earlier for his one - doors at 6 for 6.30 sharp start.

The readers:
Ian Macartney
Madeleine McCluskey




The performers:x


Takes place in the upstairs bar, unfortunately not wheelchair accessible.

Bring all pals!

11/09/2025

Big and joyous news: Mae Diansangu's Bloodsongs has been longlisted for the Poetry Debut prize in the 2025 Saltire Book Awards! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🎉

Congratulations, Mae! 👏👏👏

The judges said:

"A fearless, original, uncompromising collection showing its roots in performance, ambitious in terms of form and language. A debut with real spark and momentum."

We're so happy to see this incredible book continuing to get the recognition it deserves! 🥹

🔥🔥🔥❤️❤️❤️🔥🔥🔥❤️❤️❤️ 🔥🔥🔥

05/09/2025

Long Field Loop by Rebecca Sharp (2024)

"an extraorinary, utterly unique collection... an antidote to the Anthopocene" - John Glenday

*Longlisted for the Saltire Society's Poetry Book of Year award 2024*

When so much of moving forward includes looking back, the poems in Long Field Loop make space for making amends - a space where land, humans and more-than-humans explore patterns of experience in times of reckoning.

The title sequence looks at a decade (2014-24) of personal and political upheaval through a Scottish lens, a recalibration of hopes and dreams. Set within the wider context of late-stage capitalism, seismic global unrest and climate crisis, Rebecca Sharp's poems consider how we find our feet again, the recovery of values and voice, what we must lay to rest and how we carry on.

Rebecca Sharp is a poet, playwright and interdisciplinary artist from Glasgow, now based in Fife. Her pamphlet Rough Currency (Tapsalteerie 2021) explores the poetics of oil and the imagination, receiving an RSL Literature Matters Award and an Art of Energy Award. Interdisciplinary collaborations have been shortlisted for the Brush & Lyre Prize for Multimedia Poetry and the Scottish Landscape Awards. In 2022-24 she was the inaugural Artist in Residence with the Centre for Energy Ethics, supported by CEE and Creative Scotland; during which time she researched and wrote Long Field Loop. See more at: www.rebeccajoysharp.com.

"Long Field Loop is a cosmos channelled through the rhizomatic structure of everything everywhere all at once. Intimate and expansive, inventive, expressive, this is poetry as a (re) search for meaning and honest implication; and the reader is folded directly into its eco-poiesis. Financial futures and pine needles, tapirs, blanket bog, sea otters, and prehistoric star-gazing parties; Sharp animates the academic with vibrant interconnection and offers new patterns of thought and practice across any imagined divide. Velella velella have never sounded (or looked) so bright." - Samuel Tongue

Pick up your copy here:

https://www.tapsalteerie.co.uk/product/long-field-loop-by-rebecca-sharp/

31/08/2025

Titular poem from Shane Strachan’s 2024 collection Dwams, which was longlisted for the Saltire Society's Poetry Book of Year award.

🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷

In a spectrum of voices across Scots and English, the poems in DWAMS concern themselves with the climate emergency and just transition, rising xenophobia, and with q***r romance and s*x, in a groundbreaking debut collection from North East Scottish writer and poet Shane Strachan. The collection looks anew at the city of Aberdeen and the wider North East region's industrial heritage, moving across time and place, from mountains and farmland to city and sea.

Shane Strachan was awarded Scots Champion at the 2023 Scots Language Awards following his year as the National Library of Scotland's Scots Scriever writer-in-residence. His previous works include the novella Nevertheless (amaBooks), 'The Shelter' staged with the National Theatre of Scotland, and multiple poems and stories in Gutter, New Writing Scotland, Northwords Now, Stand and various anthologies. His poetry has also appeared on BBC Radio 4 and in Aberdeen Art Gallery and V&A Dundee. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Aberdeen where he now lectures in Creative Writing.

"A lustrous bonfire of lexical delight, where sensual shimmers flank blazing political vigour and trenchant tenderness. DWAMS is dazzling, gritty, louche, lilted and gooey — as is true of the writer himself. Full beam fantastic."
- Michael Pederson

"Strachan breathes life and love into every word of Dwams, creating a thoroughly enjoyable read you'll want to devour and savour in equal amounts."
-Len Pennie

Strachan q***rs Aberdeen, breaking down the granite façade to reveal what glitters behind deftly deploying Doric, Scots and English. These poems enriched and challenged my understanding of a place and introduced me to a local history that has wider significance for us all.
– Damian Barr

Read more praise for this stunning collection and pick up your copy here:

https://www.tapsalteerie.co.uk/product/dwams-by-shane-strachan/

22/08/2025

Once I Carried Three Crows (2024) by Rachel Plummer. 🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛

Taking their cue from the natural world, science and science-fiction, the vivid and surreal poems of Once I Carried Three Crows present contemporary myths born from experiences such as the process of ageing, disability, intergenerational relationships, body image and s*xuality. Here we find stories of the woman who married the North Sea, of ghosthouses and of birdhouses, of Iris, the first granny in space, and of the worm that eats memories along with 'half a glass / of iced Chianti.

Following on from Wain: LGBT reimaginings of Scottish folktales, a collection aimed at younger readers (Emma Press, 2019), this highly anticipated new collection for grown-ups proves Rachel Plummer to be one of the most original and exciting poets writing in Scotland today.
Rachel Plummer is a poet living in Edinburgh. They are a Scottish Book Trust New Writer's Award winner (2016) and have published widely across numerous magazines and journals. In 2017 they published a pamphlet of sci-fi poetry with House Press, and in 2019 they published Wain: LGBT reimaginings of Scottish folktales (Emma Press) after receiving a cultural commission from LGBT Youth Scotland. Rachel has two children, three guinea pigs, and entirely too many books.
'Here's a poet working in the space between song and story: someone who can handle both the drive and weight of a fable and the guiding light of a good tune.

'Here's a poet working in the space between song and story: someone who can handle both the drive and weight of a fable and the guiding light of a good tune. Rachel Plummer is telling new myths about love and s*x, transformation and discovery, being and belonging, death and hope, all the while following the bright logic of words' music. These are poems to read your sweetheart in bed at night and poems to curse your enemies: they're magic!’- Harry Josephine Giles

'The imagination in these poems is superb. Plummer's descriptive prowess is shot through with story at every turn: the woods open their arms with offerings and danger; the seas draw close. Most satisfying of all is how these tales are held in music, which runs like a current through this stunning collection!’ - Miriam Nash

Order yours here:

https://www.tapsalteerie.co.uk/product/once-i-carried-three-crows-by-rachel-plummer/

28/07/2025

Bloodsongs by Mae Diansangu

Shifting between English and North-east Scots, Bloodsongs is an ode to matters of the blood: q***r carnality; black rage; the crude power of myth; and how history is felt in the body. Offering retellings of legends and biblical stories as well as perspectives on injustices faced today, Mae Diansangu's radical debut collection marks the arrival of an exciting new voice in Scottish poetry.

Mae Diansangu is a q***r poet and spoken word artist from Aberdeen. She has performed at literary festivals across Scotland and appeared on BBC Scotland's Big Scottish Book Club and BBC Radio 4's Tongue and Talk. Her series of poems "black lives, heavy truths" is part of the National Library of Scotland's collection.

"Diansangu's poems clot beautifully under your skin, the words rolling your tongue to break complicity and silence. These poems bite with wet, sparkling, granite teeth. The coloniser's scalpel turns to mirror. White fragility, heteronormativity and (petro) patriarchy are called out. A dousing of Scottish humour leans in. Ink sings, steeped in defiant voices, as Diansangu splits binaries into multitudes, from misbehaving and 'monstrous' women, to gay Jesus, to childless mothers, to existing while Black. The body is continually evoked in language, shape and sound, pulling form from that slippery, fluid space into a vital debut collection." - Jeda Pearl

"Bloodsongs is a powerful debut packed with poems that delight and sting in equal measure. Diansangu disrupts colonial and heteronormative conceptions of the past by giving voice in Scots and English to q***r, Black and feminist perspectives that have been overlooked for far too long. An essential read." - Shane Strachan

“Bloodsongs is relevant and retrospective with a fresh twist, these poems are anthems of q***rness, love and rage. Savour the calm and the storm as this collection steals your heart and churns it in an emotional washing machine with fierce veracity and tender care. This book doesn’t feel like a debut collection – Bloodsongs has always been here.” – Jo Gilbert

Pick up your copy of this “vital debut collection” here:

https://www.tapsalteerie.co.uk/product/bloodsongs-by-mae-diansangu/