'You can't hand someone a lump of uranium. You have to wrap it in lead.'

Here's an interview at Cyprus Well with Rachael Boast about her new collection, Sidereal, which is out now with Picador. I like what she has to say about where poems come from, and about how a poet has to manage the two contrary impulses 'the heightened sense of something...and the managing of that into poetic form.'

Best Scottish Poems 2010

Last year I was asked to select the Scottish Poetry Library's 'Best Scottish Poems' for 2010. Here's my choice...

Best Scottish Poems 2010