Congratulations to Colin Bramwell who has won the 2025 Highland Book Prize!🎉 He will receive a £2000 prize and a writing retreat at Moniack Mhor, close to Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. Congratulations Colin! Purchase your copy of Fower Pessoas:⬇️ www.carcanet.co.uk/978180017464...

Next month, join us for a special Scottish Carcanet event with Topping & Company.⭐ The event will feature readings by three Scottish Carcanet poets: Anthony V. Capildeo, Jay Gao and Colin Bramwell. Find out more and get tickets:⬇️ www.carcanet.co.uk/events/an-ev... #ScottishPoetry

Colin Bramwell’s FOWER PESSOAS has won the 2025 Duas Leabhair na Gàidhealtacht / Highland Book Prize “Colin Bramwell puts all four of [Fernando] Pessoa’s heteronyms into a present-day Scots-language vernacular, & so creates a parochial Pessoa for our own times” www.highlandbookprize.org.uk/winner/

Trying to restrain myself from immediately descending into ugly bawling sentimentality. Some month! But it’s an honour. I couldn’t be happier at the idea that my stuff might appeal to writers and readers from my own homeplace. I’m grateful to judges, organisers, dream publisher Carcanet, all.

It was a day peculiar to this piece of the planet, when larks rose on long thin strings of singing and the air shifted with the shimmer of actual angels… —Alastair Reid (1926–2014), “Scotland” published in WEATHERING: Poems & Translations (EP Dutton, 1978) #BookWormSat #poem #poetry

I think this page went live on the @byleaveswelive.bsky.social’s website on Monday? A bunch o meh fellow makars aa speakin back tae or awa fae Grecht Shug o the MacDs, as curated by the skeely @brambrella.bsky.social www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/gies-a-scots... #GiesAScotsPoemDay

Many congratulations to our poet Colin Bramwell, who has WON the 2026 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize for his translation of Fernando Pessoa, Fower Pessoas! 🎉 Order your copy of Fower Pessoas here: www.carcanet.co.uk/978180017464...

A pleasure to go back to Ox for the Oxford Weidenfeld prize. Unexpectedly, Fower Pessoas won the prize and all. Its last Scottish/Scots winner was Edwin Morgan, for his translation of Racine's Phèdra, back in 2001 (also published by Carcanet). Here's what the judges had to say about mine:

2026 marks the centenary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle”. For #GiesAScotsPoemDay @brambrella.bsky.social invited some of the standard-bearers of present-day Scots poetry to compose new work responding to MacDiarmid & his legacy www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/gies-a-scots...

It's 'Gies a Scots Poem Day 2026', in partnership @handsupfortrad.bsky.social. We've commissioned 10 poets to respond to MacDiarmid’s 'A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle' for the poem's 100th birthday! Find the poems and videos here www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/gies-a-scots... #Giesascotspoemsday

Already shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize & the Scots Book o the Year, as well as being a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year, FOWER PESSOAS by @brambrella.bsky.social has also just been shortlisted for the Highland Book Prize www.highlandbookprize.org.uk/fower-pessoa...

Fower Pessoas by @brambrella.bsky.social is one of my favourite discoveries this year - nice to see it getting some prize recognition You can read an excerpt here poems.com/poem/whit/

An honour to be shortlisted for my local book prize alongside these wonders...

‘The poems are something-nothing spaces in which anything might happen, and they frequently end with a feeling of incipience, readying themselves for a change in the weather.’ Matthew Bevis on New York School poet James Schuyler. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Congratulations to @brambrella.bsky.social whose collection Fower Pessoas has been longlisted for the 2025 Highland Book Prize!🎉 This annual award celebrates literature that comes from the rich landscape and culture of the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Well done to Colin!🎉

Beyond with Colin Bramwell and Gerda Stevenson 17 June, online – pay what you can @brambrella.bsky.social & Gerda Stevenson will read and discuss poems from BEYOND, the second & last English-language poetry collection by the late Aonghas MacNeacail www.moniackmhor.org.uk/courses/2594...

Out now - a special Irish Pages on Scotland. Why Irish? Why have we no such journal of our own? 10 years since the referendum, we take stock. Cultural memory and (thanks be) new poets. irishpages.org/product/vol-...

Celebrating the 2024 Highland Book Prize Longlist 14 May, Toppings & Co. Booksellers, St Andrews £10/£8, redeemable against featured books 3 poets – @brambrella.bsky.social, @niallpoetry.bsky.social, & Gerda Stevenson – celebrate 2 exceptional collections www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/st-an...

Some very kind words on Fower Pessoas from Paul Malgrati.

Finally took the time to read Colin Bramwell´s brilliant Scots translation of the great Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa. Stuart Kelly called it a ‘modern Scots language masterpiece’ in The Scotsman: this isn’t an exaggeration. (1/3)

Blown away by this review of Fower Pessoas from Stuart Kelly.

Heartening to see the general reaction to this poem from my latest: thanks to The Scotsman for selecting it as their poem of the week.

What's all that about the cruellest month?! We don't think so! April kicks off with a brilliant poetry launch party in #Edinburgh this Friday feat. three exceptional poets: Colin Bramwell @brambrella.bsky.social, Patrick Romero McCafferty & Charles Lang! Join us! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/big-braw-p...

Couldn't make it to one of our launches of The Oasis in March? We've got you covered! Charles will be on tour across Scotland and Ireland in April. Join us in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Galway, Cork or Paisley for festival events, readings, conversations and more —see you there! 📙 #books #poetry

Had I been less prepared, I would have left in springtime, when the plum tree in the yard was still in bloom, the windows open after months of snow, one magpie in the road and then another… —John Burnside, “The Night Ferry” published in the @lrb.co.uk, December 2020 www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Somewhere along this street, unknown to me, behind a maze of apple trees and stars, he rises in the small hours, finds a book… —John Burnside, “The Good Neighbour” THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR (Cape, 2005) Hear John Burnside read this poem on @thepoetryarchive.bsky.social poetryarchive.org/poem/good-ne...

Musician Grace Stewart-Skinner recorded interviews with residents of Avoch in the Black Isle & combined these with her own musical compositions to create Auchies Spikkin’ Auchie. The Avochie dialect combines elements of Scots & Gaelic. www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...

“I wanted to honour Scots in a dramatic, vocal context… I’ve tried to bring Pessoa to life in that new context – to embolden his characters, reimagining them a century later, dislocating them to a context more personal to me.” —Colin Bramwell on FOWER PESSOAS themadridreview.com/f/fower-pess...

Stoked to see ‘New Shoes’ by Charles Lang, from his brilliant #poetry collection The Oasis, featured as Poem of the Week in today’s @scotsman.com! 👟🩶 “The Oasis is the real deal”, you heard it here first! 🤫 Pick up a copy of the paper for the full poem or treat yourself to a new book today! 📚

New post 📰 Lesley Harrison writes about the launch of 'Fower Pessoas' by Colin Bramwell @brambrella.bsky.social‬ northseapoets.substack.com/p/at-the-lau... #NorthSeaPoets #Poetry

Many thanks to Lesley Harrison of @northseapoets.bsky.social for her generous response to my Fower Pessoas. Great to see one more stack in the north sea. Theirs is well worth subscribing to - open.substack.com/pub/northsea...

New post! @kathleenjamie.bsky.social explores the place of lyric poetry in a post-lyric world ✍️ #NorthSeaPoets #PoetryCommunity

And there’s also a big bunch of spoken word stuff that I produced with @strongmisgiving.bsky.social and featuring @brambrella.bsky.social, @ryanvance.bsky.social, @smaychel.bsky.social, @tyronelewis22.bsky.social and @seanwaikeung.bsky.social among others

On Wednesday 5th March at 7pm, please join us online to celebrate the launch of Fower Pessoas by Colin Bramwell. The event will be hosted by Scottish Makar Peter Mackay and will feature readings, discussion & audience Q&A. Book your ticket here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nCHoh...

Tonight's the night folks! Fower Pessoas Zoom launch, 7pm. I'll be reading from the book, and in conversation with Scotland's Makar, Peter Mackay. See you there! www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/even...

Live online launch of @brambrella.bsky.social new book, hosted by Peter Mackay, organised by @carcanet.bsky.social Info: www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/even... #online #launch #poetry

'Pessoa’s approach is either the last word in selfishness or the opposite - generous to a fault.' @brambrella.bsky.social interviewed about his new book Fower Pessoas, for The Madrid Review: themadridreview.com/f/fower-pess...

North Sea Poets is live! We offer online masterclasses, webinars, workshops for poets everywhere (novice or adept) and readers, because poems sing in the dark times. Hope you'll join us. Pls see website. Do share. northseapoets.com 🌊 @northseapoets.bsky.social

Posted before but time to post it again:

Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦

Happy publication day to my latest volume, Fower Pessoas. To say I'm a little emotional would be an understatement. Finally, this wee thing I've worked on for ages gets released. Here's another poem from the book, then.

Happy publication to our February books! 🎉 🌰 Fourth and Walnut by Jeremy Over 👓 Fower Pessoas by Colin Bramwell 📃 Cancer by Tom Raworth For just a few more days, you can still use the code JNFB2025 for 20% off and free UK P&P - order now at carcanet.co.uk! 🌰👓📃

Delightful to be interviewed about Fower Pessoas by the wonderful Madrid Review. The magazine is well worth your time - a high quality of work contained within.

My poem ‘Climbing to Seefin Passage Tomb on Summer Solstice’, which is an homage to my late mentor John Burnside, has just been published in the Times Literary Supplement. Please have a read. www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/o...

News from Falkirk @brambrella.bsky.social @carcanet.bsky.social

Thanks to @jntod.bsky.social for the shout out for Flower Pessoaa on his excellent blog, Some Flowers Soon. I fully agree with his observation on Scots/English here.

This month, we are publishing Fower Pessoas by Colin Bramwell (@brambrella.bsky.social)! 👓 www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

Ever wondered what Pessoas Scottish heteronyms might sound like after a few pints of heavy? Me neither.

from Fower Pessoas, by @brambrella.bsky.social from @carcanet.bsky.social