Hello all, I’m very pleased to herald the SPL’s Christmas Podcast. This is a really amazing one, with Robyn Marsack and I discussing Home and a special, brilliant version of Twas the Night Before Christmas with Toby Mottershead. It’s a rollicking, stocking-bursting treat and we hope you love it. On this podcast, you also get to hear two of my poems: My 100-Year Old Ghost and Oregon Trail.

Twas the Night Before Festivus…

“He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,/ And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.”

In this Festivus podcast we feature a specially commissioned interpretation of the classic Christmas poem ‘A Visit from St Nicholas’ aka ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ from the amazing Toby Mottershead and some of Black Diamond Express (listen to Toby on another podcast in our series). And as home is something many of us return to at this time of year, we’ve also a discussion on poetry and homecoming between New Zealand born Robyn Marsack, Director of the Scottish Poetry Library, and Connecticut bred Ryan van Winkle, Reader in Residence at the SPL and Edinburgh City Libraries. They talk about their respective journeys to Scotland from their native lands and explore the influence of the poems they have brought with them from their homes and a few they have picked up along the way.

From all of us at the Scottish Poetry Library, Season’s Greetings, Nollaig Chridheil and Guid Yule!

Email Ryan and Colin about your thoughts on the podcast and what’s whetting your poetical whistle for 2010.