Meet Scotland’s New Makar on Robert Burns’ Birthday

Virtual Event and Q&A – Live 2 p.m. CST

Join Gus Noble for a conversation with Kathleen Jamie, on her career, Robert Burns, her concern with nature writing, and the reawakening of poetry today. In her first five months as Scotland’s newly appointed national poet, Kathleen Jamie, has already addressed the Scottish Parliament and COP26, used social media to curate a national nature poem from over 1,000 submissions, and continued to use poetry to discuss the pandemic. On her appointment as Makar, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said, “Kathleen is a highly accomplished poet who is known for her works in English and Scots, and the meaningful connections her writing draws between our lives and the landscape around us. I have no doubt she will continue to build on the exceptional work of her predecessors to promote Scottish poetry both here and abroad.”

A poet and essayist, Kathleen was born in Scotland in 1962. Her work concerns nature, travel and culture. Her poetry collections include The Overhaul, which won the 2012 Costa Poetry Prize, and The Tree House, which won the Forward prize. Her non-fiction includes the highly regarded Findings, Sightlines, and Surfacing, all regarded as important contributions to the ‘new nature writing’. (Surfacing won both the John Burroughs Medal and the Orion Book Award in the USA) Her most recent poetry collection, The Bonniest Companie appeared in 2015, and won the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award.