You would expect Scotland’s national poet to have a heavily marked dance card. Having only taken up the role in December of last year, Peter Mackay, the first native Gaelic speaker to be appointed Makar, has still made a prolific start, whether working with schools, speaking out against the pitfalls of artificial intelligence for writers and publishers, or championing literature in his native Gaelic, Scots and other languages. All of this activity has been accomplished while holding down a day job as senior lecturer in literature at the University Of St Andrews. 

Mackay, whose poetry collections include Gu Leòr (Galore) and Nádar de (Some Kind Of), and whose subjects range from the earthbound natural world to the furthest recesses of the solar system, had a particularly busy and varied schedule at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival. He not only led a workshop on the challenges of translation (he regularly translates his own work from Gaelic into English) but also curated a showcase of Scotland-based poets writing in languages other than English, including Polish, Spanish and Arabic, and took centre stage in a wide-raging event entitled Meeting One’s Makar. 

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