StAnza, Scotland's International Poetry Festival

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StAnza, Scotland's International Poetry Festival

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Scotland's international poetry festival. Get it in the diaries:
StAnza 2026 13-15 March

27/10/2026

Huge congratulations to the winners of the 2026 Forward Prizes for Poetry!

We’re especially delighted for Sarah Howe, who has won Best Collection for Foretokens (Chatto & Windus). Sarah was one of our headliners at StAnza 2026, and it was a joy to have her in St Andrews. Many congratulations, Sarah!

Congratulations also to:

Nur Turkmani, winner of the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection for October (Hajar Press)
Tara Bergin, winner of Best Single Poem (Written) for ‘The Fear’, first published in The Stinging Fly. Tara read at StAnza back in 2018 and it’s lovely to see her honoured again!
Biff Smith, winner of Best Single Poem (Performed) for ‘Dumbarton East’, a brilliant win for Scottish spoken word

You can read more about the winners on the Forward Arts Foundation website: https://forwardartsfoundation.org/winners-of-the-forward-prizes-for-poetry-2026/

21/10/2026

We are deeply saddened by the loss of Douglas Dunn, one of Scotland’s finest poets and a great friend to StAnza.

Douglas was part of StAnza’s story from the very beginning, performing at our inaugural festival in 1998. Through his many years teaching at the University of St Andrews, and his lifelong commitment to writing, studying and championing poetry, he helped shape Scotland’s literary landscape and inspired generations of poets and readers.

We remember Douglas with enormous gratitude for his friendship, his generosity and his remarkable contribution to poetry. Our thoughts are with his family, friends and all those who knew and loved him.

Photo credit: Norman McBeath

05/10/2026

Our Well Versed featured poet for October is Chen Chen! You are invited to a free live online reading and Q&A with him on the 21st October, noon-1pm, UK time.

Hosted in partnership with Open Book, Open Book will also host a reading session looking at Chen Chen's work on 14th October, and a creative writing session in response to his work on the 28th October.

You can see and sign up for these free events - and see Open Book's full calendar of events - here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/open-book-30182484732

Any shares welcome!

02/10/2026

Twenty-eight years ago this month, the first StAnza festival took place.

This is the cover of our first brochure, from StAnza 98. Back then we ran in the autumn, from 8 to 11 October 1998.

It opened on National Poetry Day with Douglas Dunn, Kathleen Jamie and Roddy Lumsden reading at the Crawford Arts Centre. Tickets were £5. On the Saturday night, Paul Durcan and Edwin Morgan shared the stage at Lower Parliament Hall.

In their welcome, the festival's founders wrote that StAnza was "unashamedly international in outlook. We have poets from as far away as Zimbabwe and as close as Cellardyke." This is still a core part of who we are!

We're now getting ready for our 30th anniversary festival on the 12th - 14th of March 2027, and we're gathering memories from every year so far. If you have photos, programmes, ticket stubs or a story from a StAnza past, we'd love to see them. A photo or scan is perfect, and you don't need to part with anything.

Share your memories: https://stanzapoetry.org/stanza-at-30-share-your-memories/

30/09/2026

Our Fifebuilt mentees and poet John Glenday came together for their first in-person meeting recently, during which they looked at a poem from Karen Solie and spent time sharing and giving feedback on each other's work.

Over the coming months, they will receive further 1-1 support with John and take part in more sessions as a group to develop their poetry, all culminating in a very special event at our 2027 festival where they will be able to share what they have been working on.

Join us in cheering on these Fife-based writers along their journey - we can't wait to see what they will bring to our 30th anniversary festival in March 2027.

23/09/2026

Congratulations to everyone longlisted for Scottish Poetry Book of the Year at The Saltires 2026! 📚

It's lovely to see so many poets who've read at StAnza on this year's list:

🔹 Hannah Lavery - Everything Everyday (Polygon Books)
🔹 Agata Maslowska - Woman Plant Language (Bad Betty Press)
🔹 Michael Mullen - Goonie (Little, Brown)
🔹 Vicki Husband - Glasgoscopy (Vagabond Voices)
🔹 Stewart Sanderson - Weathershaker (Tapsalteerie)
🔹 Ryan Van Winkle - Get Closer (Birlinn)

Well done to all ten longlisted poets and their publishers, and good luck for the shortlist!

You can see the full longlist on the Saltire Society's page.

09/09/2026

Something recorded at StAnza in March has landed.

Michael Mullen joins Harry Baker on the Something Borrowed podcast to talk poetry origin stories, how to put a performance poem on the page and do it justice, authenticity versus commercial viability, and writing and performing in Scots. Michael's Forward Prize-nominated collection Goonie comes up, as does Harry's Tender.

Listen here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/s5e7-michael-mullen-what-was-left-but-poetry/id1505092197?i=1000784846107

06/09/2026

Meet the last of our 2026 Fifebuilt mentees: Elaine Newton.

Elaine is a poet based in Newport-on-Tay who works as an acting, improvisation and speaking with confidence coach. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Scotland, New Writing Dundee and in anthologies from Salty Press, and she's been a regular at StAnza and its masterclasses for the past decade.

"I enjoy poems that are honest about difficult things, and that trust the reader to sit with them."

Elaine is drawn to what's tender and what's dark, often in the same poem, and to childhood, mothers and daughters, cold water and the unspoken. By day she teaches acting, improv and speaking with confidence, so breath, voice and the physical life of language are never far from her writing.

Having historically written mostly for the drawer, she's excited to be stepping further into the world of poetry. We're delighted to have her with us.

Fifebuilt is our mentorship programme for emerging Fife-based poets, created to mark StAnza's 30th anniversary. Elaine, Larissa Reid and Tina Norris are working with poet John Glenday through to March 2027, ahead of a performance slot at StAnza 2027.

04/09/2026

A proper thank you to five brilliant independent presses and bookshops.

This month our supporters received exclusive discount codes from Dialect, Trickhouse Press, Typewronger Books, Tapsalteerie - with a special benefit also on its way from Lighthouse Books - we're so grateful to them all! Please go and buy their books!!

Supporter discounts are one of the smaller benefits. StAnza supporters also get priority booking across ten events, a free digital pass, and first sight of the programme before it goes public. It starts at £50 a year, and it's the most direct way to keep Scotland's International Poetry Festival going.

Become a StAnza supporter: https://stanzapoetry.org/our-supporters

28/08/2026

Meet Tina Norris, another of our 2026 Fifebuilt mentees! 📸

Tina is a photographer and writer based in West Fife. She's freelanced for most of her career, including three years as a contract photographer for The Sunday Times Scotland, and her documentary work spans a trawler fishing trip in the North Sea, an expedition with Raleigh International in Alaska, and a commission for the photographic book on Scotland presented to leaders at the G8 summit at Gleneagles. Her poetry has been published in London Grip, and she was shortlisted in the 2025 Sunday Post short story competition.

"As a swimmer, I appreciate the restoration of the tidal pools of Fife... I relish the contrast of pools stringing down Dollar Glen, looping into shade while the tops of the Ochils bake."

Tina is working with mentor John Glenday through Fifebuilt, our poetry mentorship programme created to mark StAnza's 30th anniversary. She'll be building a portfolio of work ahead of a performance slot at StAnza 2027!

Find her at tinanorris.co.uk or on Instagram:

Address

St Andrews

Website

http://www.stanzapoetry.org/

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