Events this month and next at the Scottish Poetry Library

Black Women’s Voices: An Evening of Poetry and Discussion

17 October, 6.30pm, free Celebrate Black History Month at the Scottish Poetry Library with this exciting event, headlined by Jamaican-canadian poet Olive Senior. Winner of the Musgrave Gold Medal and Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Senior is a poet of international standing. She will be supported by the Collect:if network, a new organisation promoting the writing of BAME women. The evening is supported by Engender, the NUS Scotland Women’s Campaign and the Scottish Poetry Library.

From East to West: Chrys Salt, Bashabi Fraser and Alan Riach

26 October, 6.30pm, £6 (£5) Poets Chrys Salt, Bashabi Fraser and Alan Riach will be reading from their recently launched pamphlets published by East to West. The Homing Bird by Bashabi Fraser and The Punkawallah’s Rope by Chrys Salt mark the Uk-india Year of Culture and the 70th Anniversary year of Partition. Salt and Fraser are joined by Alan Riach reading from his latest poetry collection The Winter Book, and poems about India.

Wilfred Owen 100 Years Later

3 November, 6.30pm, £5 (£3) On the centenary of the day Wilfred Owen left Edinburgh after a transformative stay in the capital, the Scottish Poetry Library is staging a panel discussion about his legacy. Did Owen’s poetry change the way the British saw war forever? Or has it in fact distorted the public’s memory of the First World War? Why is it Owen that enjoys the reputation of the preeminent war poet and not Sassoon, Gurney, Graves? The discussion will also look at the legacy of the groundbreaking treatment Owen received at Craiglockhart. Panellists include Trevor Royle and Neil Mclennan. ■