Launch of "Appetite" by Clara-Læïla Laudette

Join us for an evening showcasing the most exciting poets emerging in the UK right now We'll be celebrating the Scottish launch of Appetite with readings from the brilliant Nasim Luczaj, Tom Bailey, Zainab Imran and Zain Rishi. Meet the authors Clara-Læïla Laudette Clara-Læïla Laudette is a writer, facilitator and journalist. Her debut pamphlet Appetite is out now with fourteen poems. She won MagmaJudge’s Prize and placed third in the Poetry London and London Magazine Prizes. An Adrienne Rich Poetry Award semifinalist, her poems were shortlisted for the Oxford Poetry, Bridport and Pat Kavanagh prizes, and the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award. Her work was also longlisted in the National Poetry Competition. Clara-Læïla's poems, translations and reviews are widely published, including in Poetry Review, Propel, And Other Poems and Wet Grain. Praise for Clara-Læïla Laudette's Appetite: "A poet of lithe and granular intimacy. Appetite is an unmissable debut." — Karen McCarthy-Woolf" In Appetite, Laudette writes out of life and into the world, in a voice both lush and brutish, from its ‘sugared teeth’ and ‘a pond-smelling bikini’ to the ‘drowned blankets in the killing wind’. These poems swill the glass and spit it into the hand, with a clear-headed erudition that burrows into quandary." — Jack Underwood "A stunning, bravura performance." — Bernard O’Donoghue Tom Bailey Tom Bailey is a poet and editor based in Edinburgh. His debut pamphlet, Please Do Not Touch or Feed the Horses, won an Eric Gregory Award in 2025 and a Somerset Maugham Award in 2026. He also recently won the 2026 Edwin Morgan Award for the best collection of poems written by a Scottish poet under 30. He works as a support worker in Midlothian, and edits the online poetry magazine And Other Poems. Praise for Tom Bailey's Please Do Not Touch or Feed the Horses: "Bailey tilts the world to allow us to see it differently and evokes the baffling, beautiful experience of living, grieving, loving, existing.” – Cecilia Knapp "It’s the startling clarity of language that welcomes you into these poems, and the warm wealth of insight that keeps you with them.” – Harry Josephine Giles “Bailey’s is an original voice, in a debut pamphlet with no fillers - quirky, wry, funny.” – Vanessa Lampert, Poetry Society Sealey Challenge Zainab Imran Zainab Imran is a poet and museum worker based in Edinburgh. Zainab won the Royal Society of Literature Sky Arts Award as Emerging Writer of Colour for Poetry 2022 and was shortlisted for the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize in 2024. She is a co-recipient of the Edwin Morgan Prize 2026. Her work has appeared in Propel, Gutter, Wasafiri and fourteen poems. Nasim Luczaj Nasim Luczaj is the author of Hind Mouth (Earthbound Press) and Ultraviolet with Landing Marks (Oblique House) and the winner of the 2024 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. She works as a translator and edits the magazine Wet Grain. Her debut full length collection, Tang, is forthcoming from Faber & Faber in February 2027. Praise for Nasim Luczaj's Ultraviolet with Landing Marks: "Nasim Luczaj is an extraordinary new voice." — Pascale Petit "Luczaj’s diction is entirely her own, her image and phrase-making entirely original and revivifying, and yet her concerns are eternal, her gaze long, her eye generous and connective." — Declan Ryan "A poet of fierce intellect and vivid empathy." — Karen McCarthy Woolf Zain Rishi Zain Rishi is a writer from Birmingham, UK. He won the 27th annual Ware Poets Competition and was longlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2026. His poetry has featured in magazines such as Oxford Poetry, Wildness, Propel, Magma and Gutter. His debut pamphlet, Noon, came out in February 2026 and was a Shakespeare & Company Year of Reading selection. Praise for Zain Rishi's Noon: “Dazzling, tender, unexpected” ~ Jackie Kay “Full of rich imagery and formal intuition, Noon is a bright balm of a book.” ~ Seán Hewitt“ I have been waiting for a pamphlet as beautiful and as aching as this one.” ~ Hannah Copley