Cat MacLeod

Originally from Falkland in Fife and now based near Dundee, Cat MacLeod didn’t set out to be a poet. As she says ‘I actually always wanted to run around looking at bugs. But now I write poems about running around looking at bugs’. She is particularly drawn to writing ecological poetry ‘weaving in experiences of witnessing alongside fun facts about animals, and seeing where the spaces between these facets grow’; and finds that as she learns more about ecology, she ‘can’t stop writing alongside it’.

A fan of poems as a child, it was the discovery of her mum’s anthology of Stevie Smith’s poetry that ‘spiralled’ MacLeod into writing poems of her own. Her other poetry influences include Anja Konig’s Animal Experiments and Isabelle Galleymore’s Baby Schema, both of which are ‘at times deeply funny and devastating’ and Audre Lorde’s essay Poetry is Not a Luxury which she read early in her poetry journey, but whose words ‘stay with [her] still’. She takes great inspiration from ‘the brilliant creative community’ in Dundee and from Hadfield and Haraway’s The Tree Snail Manifesto, of which she says ‘the links between history, anthropology, activism, science and humanities in this paper are a huge influence on the way I write, in poetry, research and prose’.

‘I really love experimental or interdisciplinary work, and I find poetry can be really useful for expanding thinking beyond defined experiences, offering a gap between what is seen, felt and known.’

The highlight of MacLeod’s poetry journey thus far saw her travel to Divjake-Karavasta National Park in Albania for an artist residency with the ‘wonderful and innovative’ Albanian Ornithological Society where ‘the opportunity to blend expert-led scientific education with [her] creative practice was incredible’. For MacLeod, A Poet in Every Port offers a ‘really exciting’ opportunity for ‘two whole years with a dedicated focus on creating poetry’. ‘Poets in Dundee often leave the city to platform their work more publicly, so it’s really great to have an invigoration and focus on the poetry scene here’.