Liz Lochhead library visit

SCOTLAND’S national poet Liz Lochhead is to make an appearance at Shetland Library next week.

The distinguished poet, playwright, translator and broadcaster will speak at an event funded by the Scottish Poetry Library to mark the end of her term as Scotland’s Makar. It takes place on Tuesday (8 March) from 7.30pm until 8.30pm and admission is free. 

“I am very pleased to return to Shetland and Orkney this March,” Lochhead said. “The landscape, the language and the people are very dear to me. I look forward to reading poems, excerpts from my plays and talking to the people who come to see me perform.”

Shetland Library’s new “reading champion” Jacqui Clark will interview Lochhead as part of the event. Clark has just taken up the part-time post, funded by the Scottish Book Trust, and is delighted that one of her first tasks will be to meet one of her heroines.

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“Liz Lochhead is one of Scotland’s most influential and inspirational contemporary writers,” she said.

“The joy of listening to Liz read is that she breaks down the barriers that can exist between you and poetry – she makes you feel at home and her words are so easy to listen to.

“As she nears the end of her time as Makar there is a super opportunity to reflect on the work she has created during a time of change in Scotland.”

At the time of Lochhead’s appointment in 2011, the then First Minister Alex Salmond said: “With a natural ability to reach all ages and touch both sexes through her writing, Ms Lochhead has also been immensely successful at championing the Scots language.

“She continues to reach out to school pupils through her work which is widely read in Scotland’s schools and she is also a much valued role model, advocate and inspiration for women who are given a strong voice in her writing.”

She was last in Shetland for the Wordplay book festival in 2011. One of her best known plays, ‘Mary Queen of Scots got her Head Chopped Off’, was performed here by the National Theatre of Scotland in 2009.