Double Bill: Gail McConnell & Roseanne Watt

Push the Boat Out is proud to present one of the first outings for Gail McConnell’s much anticipated book-length poem, The Sun is Open, following the acclaim of her highly unusual, liminal poems in Fourteen and Fothermather, which explored parenthood and attachment beyond biology. The Sun is Open takes a new direction entirely, exploring the death of her father in Belfast in the 1990s but with the same arresting approach – and delivery.

When Roseanne Watt reads, you can hear a pin drop. Woven through with the language and imagery of Shetland, her poems are a soundscape, her precision is a revelation. Her dual-language debut collection, Moder Dy, was published by Polygon in May 2019. It received both an Eric Gregory and Somerset Maugham Award in 2020, and was named joint-winner of the Highland Book Prize 2019. Winner of the Edwin Morgan Poetry Prize in 2018, Roseanne Watt is one of Scotland’s finest writers and is not to be missed.