Broken Sleep Triple Launch Night - 29th April @7pm
Join us for a triple launch from Broken Sleep Books, hosted by Maria Sledmere.
We will be launching three publications:
The Last Song: Words for Frightened Rabbit edited by Aaron Kent and Maria Sledmere
Dastram/Delirium by Taylor Strickland
Let Us (or the Invocation of Smoke) by Shehzar Doja
There will be readings from: Taylor Strickland, Shehzar Doja, Jo Higgs, jade king and Emma Whitelaw
About the books
The Last Song is a poignant tribute to one of the most beloved bands of our time. This book takes readers on a journey through the heart and soul of Frightened Rabbit's music, exploring themes of love, loss, and the human condition with raw emotion and lyrical beauty. Each page is a powerful reflection on the band's songs, offering a new perspective on the music that has touched so many lives. Whether you're a die-hard fan or discovering Frightened Rabbit for the first time, The Last Song is a must-read for anyone who appreciates the power of music to move us and inspire us.
Taylor Strickland’s Dastram/Delirium samples the soaring verse of one of Scotland’s pivotal poetic talents, Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair. Formal innovation, political protest, revelry in nature, and erotic praise poetry are all contained here, the first full-length collection of Alasdair to appear in English in over a century. An Enlightenment mind and contemporary of Pope, Hume and Burke, his poetry should have been the indigenous genius Samuel Johnson and James Boswell sought out in their now-infamous literary tour through the Highlands and Islands. Though much-celebrated within his native Gaelic language, Alasdair’s poetry is as much neglected outside of Gaelic. But now, in novel literary translations by Taylor Strickland, readers can re-visit his oeuvre and restore his name to the wider literary conscience.
Let us (or the invocation of smoke) by Shehzar Doja is a mysterious and ethereal pamphlet. The words patter inexplicably onto the page like a tiger dreaming of snow. Through these meditative poems Doja shows a deep engagement with craft, realizing “in that primordial amniotic /we never were / when we were.” His masterful wordplay curls like smoke rising from an extinguished candle
About the authors:
Taylor Strickland is a poet and translator from the US. He is the author of Commonplace Book and Dastram/Delirium, his forthcoming versions of Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair (both with Broken Sleep Books). Recently, his poem ‘The Low Road’ was adapted by American composer, Andrew Kohn, and performed in Orkney. His poem ‘Nine Whales, Tiree’ is in the process of being adapted to film with filmmaker Olivia Booker and composer Fee Blumenthaler. He is currently a doctoral candidate in literary translation at the University of Glasgow, and he lives in Glasgow, with his wife, Lauren.
Shehzar Doja is Founder/Editor-in-Chief of The Luxembourg Review and Poetry Reviews Editor at Gutter. His poetry and translations have appeared in New Welsh Review, Pratik, Modern Poetry in Translation, Voice and Verses, Ceremony, Poems from the Edge of Extinction, Gutter, The Centenary Collection for Edwin Morgan, Fundstücke-Trouvailles and more. His poetry collection -Drift- was published by UPL/Monsoon Letters in 2016 and he recently co-edited I am a Rohingya: Poetry from the Camps and Beyond (Arc, 2019)with James Byrne which was the recipient of Poetry Book Society’s inaugural ‘World Choice’ award. In 2021, Shehzar's poem marked the start of Cop 26 in Scotland which was also the catalyst for the first 'Poetry in Parliament' event at Holyrood in 2022 alongside being invited to read at Cop27. He was named a 'Youth Icon' in Bangladesh in 2017 by the Newage Newspaper and a 'Future World Changer' by the University of Glasgow in 2019.
Maria Sledmere is a lecturer and lapsed music journalist based in Glasgow. She is editor-in-chief of SPAM Press and author of poetry books including Visions & Feed (HVTN Press, 2022), String Feeling (Erotoplasty Editions, 2022) and The Luna Erratum (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2021). The latter was shortlisted for the Saltire Society's Scottish Poetry Book of the Year 2022.
Emma Whitelaw is an English Literature UoG MA graduate and Napier undergraduate in English and Film. She is published in Glasgow zines, including Dolls zine, CHEWGULPSPIT, morii, and Queer Futures. Emma’s favourite theme when writing is magic in mundanity.
Jo Higgs (he/him) lives in Edinburgh, where he is from and is yet to escape. Recently he won the Sloan Prize and was a runner-up in the John Byrne Award. His story in this anthology is inspired by a lyric in the song 'Poke'.
jade king is a dyslexic poet from the UK. She is often told she “looks like a dog person.” Her work has been published or is forthcoming in 3:AM Magazine, Schlag Magazine and Poetry Salzburg Review.