Edwin Morgan wrote across forms, themes, and languages and supported other writers to find their voices; it is with this spirit that St Mungo’s Mirrorball designed the Clydebuilt Verse Apprenticeship Scheme. Founded in 2007, the scheme provides intensive support for poets at an early stage of their writing careers, encouraging a greater dialogue between them and more experienced practitioners.
Funded through The Second Life Awards, the Clydebuilt scheme offers emerging poets the opportunity to receive mentoring from an experienced poet-tutor over the course of twelve months. Through a set of group tutorials and one-to-one sessions, participants are encouraged to develop not only their own writing style but their ability to critique others. Over the year the participants develop a portfolio of poems and, at the end of the twelve months, give a reading of a selection of their resulting work along with their tutor at a dedicated St Mungo’s Mirrorball event.
Mentor
John Glenday is the author of four collections: The Apple Ghost (Peterloo Poets 1989), Undark (Peterloo Poets 1995), Grain (Picador, 2009), and The Golden Mean (Picador 2015). His most recent publications are a limited edition artbook in collaboration with Maria Isakova Bennett, mira (Coast to Coast to Coast 2019) and a pamphlet, The Firth (Mariscat Press 2020). His Selected Poems also came out with Picador in 2020. John is an experienced mentor and former judge of the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award.
Poets
Nasim Rebecca Asl is a Glasgow-based poet and journalist. Originally from Washington, Tyne and Wear, her work has been published widely in magazines and anthologies including in New Writing Scotland, Poetry Wales, Modern Poetry in Translation. She has been the Scotsman’s Poem of the Week. Nasim received a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award for Poetry in 2021 and was shortlisted for the 2022 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. She has worked on projects with the likes of The Poetry Translation Centre, The Poetry Business and the Rugby League World Cup. She teaches workshops, has performed around the UK and chairs events at book festivals. Her debut pamphlet Nemidoonam was released by Verve Poetry Press in February 2023.
Kim Crowder has poems published in numerous journals including Argo, Encounter, Envoi, New Statesman, Outposts, Rialto, and 1987 Arvon Anthology (Selectors T. Hughes and S. Heaney). First prize in George Crabbe Memorial poetry competition 1984 and 1986. Recent creative non-fiction essays have appeared in Heather: An Anthology of Scottish Writing, Pushing Out the Boat, and on websites including Landlines Nature Writing Project, Weather Matters Hub and The Polyphony. During 2023, participated in The Prescription medical humanities writing project hosted by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. She lives in rural Angus.
Mattea Gernentz is a poet and curator from Tennessee based between Edinburgh and Paris. With studies in art history, literature, and psychology, she is an alumna of the University of St Andrews and Wheaton College. Mattea was selected as a 2022 Next Generation Young Makar by the Scottish Poetry Library and acted as Writer-in-Residence at the Château de la Haute Borde in 2023. Her writing meditates on themes of beauty, memory, and faith and has been featured in a variety of publications, such as Solum Press, The Pub, and Little Living Room, in addition to exhibitions and anthologies.
Cat MacLeod is a poet, creative facilitator and library worker based in Dundee. They graduated from University of Dundee with a Master of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing 2021, and are currently completing a Post-Graduate in Applied Arts and Social Practice at Queens Margaret University. They were selected as an Emerging Programmer for Book Week Scotland 2021, and as a ‘Future Library Leader’ on the CILIP125 List, and have poetry within F!lm Soup, The Magdalene and Variant Literature.
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