SOUNDSCAPE IN POETRY

Starting with some light terminology and a heady mixture of classic and contemporary poems to draw inspiration from, this is a workshop for anyone and everyone who is enamoured, baffled, or bewildered by the concept and significance of sound in poetry.

Guaranteed to deepen your love and understanding of every syllable you give to the page, this session will give you the confidence to go deeper into the poems you love, and to make your own words sing. Not to be missed!

ABOUT THE POET:

Aoife Lyall is the author of 'Mother, Nature' (Bloodaxe Books, 2021), shortlisted for the Scottish First Book Award 2021, and 'The Day Before' (Bloodaxe Books, 2024), poems from which were shortlisted in the Bridport Poetry Competition and Highly Commended in the Forward Prize for Poetry. Previous accolades include an Emerging Scottish Writer residency by Cove Park in 2020 and being twice shortlisted for the Hennessy New Irish Writing Awards. She has received generous National Lottery funding through Creative Scotland to support the writing of her collections.

She is reviews editor of Magma Poetry, and has worked as a guest curator and young makar mentor for the Scottish Poetry Library. She has also worked with the Saltire Society as a judge, and Butcher’s Dog as a guest editor. Her poems have inspired music, film, sculpture and artwork across the UK and Ireland. Lyall lives and works in the Scottish Highlands with her family and her work focuses on motherhood, queerness, lockdown, and emigration.

Praise for 'The Day Before'

‘Her theme is ‘heaven in the ordinary’ – moments of illumination in everyday life. Written during the pandemic (chillingly evoked in the poem ‘Moss’), these moments become necessary for survival. There’s an imagist precision here, with real emotional power.’ – Graeme Richardson, The Sunday Times, on The Day Before

'There's an undercurrent of suffering to Aoife Lyall's second collection, The Day Before, much of which coheres around the disorientating days of lockdown; its odd rituals, barriers and a looming atmosphere of bureaucratic dread ... There's an elegiac tone to some of the work...and here, the use of gesture and withholding, of feeling by absence, is...effective.' – Declan Ryan, The Irish Times

'The Day Before is remarkable for the assured, luminous quality of each of its poems .... The Day Before is a deceptively complex collection - though its beautiful language and celebration of the everyday create a quiet magic, there is a pervading sense of melancholy as Lyall uncovers the loss in our lives, including the loss of childhood and innocence; the environmental losses we see around us every day; the loss of security in a world marked by pandemic.' – Rosamund Taylor, Poetry Ireland Review