Tapsalteerie Poetry Extravaganza: A World Book Day Trio!

A pop of poetry to celebrate World Book Day!

Celebrating three new books from one of our favourite independent poetry presses - he fabulous Tapsalteerie - we welcome a trio of award-winning poets to the bookshop!

Join us for a relaxed evening of poetry and discussion as we hear readings from Sarah Stewart, Taylor Strickland, and Stewart Sanderson about their new publications.

The books:

Sarah Stewart / Devour Everything ("Sumptuous, lyrical, and downright gorgeous throughout" – Jane McKie)

Devour Everything is a love letter to heroic failure, to creation in the face of destruction, to the mundane made sacred. Ranging from New York to small-town Aberdeenshire, from pop culture to Norse Valkyries, and wrestling with issues of motherhood, memory and loss, Sarah Stewart’s deftly illuminating debut collection reminds us that as humans “we are animals / and our bodies remember things.”

Sarah Stewart's poetry has been widely published and her debut pamphlet, Glisk (Tapsalteerie), was winner of the Callum Macdonald Memorial

Award for the best Scottish poetry pamphlet. Sarah also writes fiction as Sarah Forbes Stewart - her novel Aren’t We Lucky was released as an Audible Original in 2025, narrated by Nicola Coughlan.

Stewart Sanderson / Weathershaker ("A stunning collection" – David Kinloch)

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. 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.

Taylor Strickland / Dwell Time ("One of the most exciting poets working in Scotland today." – Cal Flyn)

Dwell Time 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, now based in Aberfeldy. His previous 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.