In this special centenary year of the birth of Scotland’s first ever Makar – the remarkable Edwin Morgan – we celebrate the unbridled power of poetry. For Morgan, the job of being Scotland’s National Poet was to remind Scots that ‘if they want to achieve something in the world, and to really be taken seriously, then they need to show the world what they stand for’.

The poets who join us this Festival embody that sentiment: from poems which ignite activism; to those which help us better comprehend our humanity and shared experiences; to those which sharply and wittily observe the world around us - their words and verses act as rallying cries – uniting us in the quest for better understanding ourselves and the world we inhabit.