Edinburgh invites public to write their own poems - with a little help from prize-winning poet

PEOPLE in Edinburgh are being asked to mark Book Week Scotland by joining a virtual “poetry party” and writing their own poem – with a little help from a prize-winning poet.

Michael Pedersen is an award-winning poet

The theme is “The Future” and Michael Pedersen has written verse one to help prompt members of the public.

Edinburgh Libraries, which is organising the poetry party, hope as many people as possible will add their own words to write verse two.

People are the invited to send in their verses by social media or email and they will be published online.

A spokeswoman said: “Our future has never looked more different and poetry is a deep-rooted, soul-searching, joyous way to get our thoughts and feelings out into the open in words. We aim to gather as many as we can and look at how we can collaborate them into forever memories."

Top book designer Jon Gray has produced a poster to go with the event, which is being displayed in libraries which are open.

Verse one of the poem is:

The future:

is the distinction between dreams & the dreams we dream of dreaming;

is the memory of a song in toes frisking soil for its stories;

is like rice, best served sticky and shovelled back;

is a restless poem, caught in night’s nib.

Verse two invites four more lines about the future.

People are asked to tag or DM the event via social media, @TalesOfOneCity on Twitter, @EdinburghCityLibraries on Facebook or email [email protected] including #DreamsWeDreamOfDreaming.

Book Week Scotland is an annual celebration of books and reading which takes place across the country. It runs from next Monday to Sunday November 22.

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