Internationally-recognised poet Valerie Gillies is the special guest at Taigh Chearsabhagh’s next poetry evening on Thursday, March 30.

Valerie will read from a new collection celebrating Scotland’s wild grasses and draw attention to their benefits to our well-being. She will talk about recognising the grasses, spending time in their living world, and learning their names. And explore why it is good for our well-being to be outside watching the grasses moving in the breeze and how it positively impacts us to see their diversity.

The reading will be accompanied by photography projections by artist Rebecca Marr, with a discussion of their collaborative work.

The event will close with a discussion with the audience about their own experiences of the world of grasses.

It is a free in-person event but can also be joined via Zoom. Both can be booked on the Taigh Chearsabhagh website.

Valerie Gillies is a highly regarded poet and a former Edinburgh Makar. She regularly contributes to major anthologies and is an inspirational creative writing teacher. She has held several writing fellowships across the country. Valerie was a literary arts practitioner in psychiatric and general hospitals with Artlink and is now a trainer with Lapidus. She often works collaboratively with visual artists.

Rebecca Marr is a photographic artist who grew up in the Highlands and now lives in Orkney. She set up a darkroom while still at school and went on to study photography at Napier University in Edinburgh. As well as teaching photography, recent projects have included the medicinal flora of Orkney and an ongoing fascination with seaweed.