iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

She say of this poem, “I just really thought about why I love living in the Borders, and my insecurities around being gay and moving to a small village, after being attacked in Edinburgh… However, I've never felt more at home.”

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Wiccaspellrose has always loved writing, but before this has only written for herself. She is currently working on a few novels, ghost stories, and a children’s book. Her dream is to be a published author, so she can go in to schools to encourage young writers, especially her fellow dyslexics.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

And the third, and last (but by no means least) of our shortlisted poems is “A Girl from the City, Another on the Edge by Wiccaspellrose! “A friendly face. An unsaid knowing. A hello to you, and welcome.”

A Girl in the City, Another on the Edge
Wiccaspellrose

A girl in the city, another on the edge.
Fell in love.
Their eyes caught across a dance floor. Their heart in beat with the music.
One catches her breath, the other moves forward.
Without words. Lips touch. Worlds explode.
Thirty years later, outgrown city noise. They move to a dream of space.
Air. Green trees. Birds singing.

The girl on the edge worries.
Dark fear. Creeping dread. Voices whispering. They won't like you. You're different from them. You won't fit in.
You can't hide in a village of seven hundred people.
They will talk. Point. Ignore.
Stay here where its loud.
Hide amongst the thousands. Hide in plain sight.
You were only jumped once.
Holding hands in public, I mean.
The broken nose set. The pain forgotten.
The one on the edge shook away the dark fog. The mist. The words.
And signed on the dotted line.

The city girl, bold as brass. The one on the edge quiet and cautious.
She moves slowly. Feeling the atmosphere. A mouse twitching her whiskers.
The city girl and the one on the edge walk out. A new life.
The one on the edge pulled to the book shop.
A friendly face. An unsaid knowing. A hello to you, and welcome.
The one on the edge looked around.
Flags of pride. Danced. Fluttered. A grand calling.
A surprise squeeze of the city girl’s hand.
Their eyes caught across the book shop. Their heart in beat with the silence.
One catches her breath. The other whispers
We're home. Lips touch. Worlds explode.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

This poem is based on, “a true exchange that happened in Galashiels, and I wanted to focus on how there are many more tolerant and kind people than bigots… The poem is meant to show resilience and encourage anyone who feels targeted just to be themselves.”

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

April Golightly sent us a gorgeous ‘Bio in Verse’ screenshotted here - as it unfortunately doesn’t fit in to a BlueSky post. April is:

A late in life closet-leaver/ Late in life self-believer/ Late in life Borders dweller/ Late in life story-teller/ All life-long a secret writer/ All life-long her thoughts inside her/ Till finally at forty-eight/ Told the world she wasn’t straight/ Wrote a book to share the news/ Self-published it to mixed reviews/ Covid brought another two/ Gave her something fun to do./ So is she a writer? You tell me/ Come to Pride and let us see.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

The next of our Shortlisted poems is …. It Isn’y Halloween by April Golightly! “No, the part I want to focus on is the decent Gala folk Who heard and did not just walk on but challenged how he spoke…”

It Isn’y Halloween
April Golightly

I’d been here just about two years, still hadn’t made a friend,
Tried going out for coffees, beers - gave up in the end,
Mainly stayed inside my flat, just went to work and back,
Accepted life would be just that. Till the day of the attack.

See, sometimes people look at me and I’m not what they expect,
Decide they don’t like what they see and that I don’t deserve respect.
I’m not young and I’m not thin but I don’t hide that away,
I wear clothes I feel good in no matter what folk say.

That day I set out from my flat and walked along the street
In bright pink shirt and bowler hat, my pride boots on my feet.
A local chap passed by me and did not like what he’d seen,
So chose to sneer and tell me, ‘It’s not bloody Halloween.’

I’m kinda used to all that stuff, I could have just gone to my car,
But that day I thought enough’s enough – this has gone too far.
I stopped and turned myself around, said, ‘Excuse me, what was that?’
I was anxious but I stood my ground and got ready for a spat.

‘You heard me,’ he called over his shoulder. I said, ‘I heard the words you uttered,
But I wondered why you weren’t bolder? I wondered why you muttered?
If you have something to say to me then say it to my face,
We’ll agree to disagree, but say it with good grace.’

And then as if a sewer burst, he vented out his bile,
Called me names, and swore, and cursed in ungentlemanly style.
I won’t give air to what he said - you’ve heard it all before.
He lives with that poison in his head like a weeping canker sore.

No, the part I want to focus on is the decent Gala folk
Who heard and did not just walk on but challenged how he spoke:
The lass who told him to shut his face, the one who checked I was okay,
The lad who chased him from the place, the man who made him go away.

And the little girls, just about eight, who ran up when he’d fled,
‘We want to say that you look great, so don’t be sad’ they said.
A good place to conclude this tale if a…

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Gwenhwfar writes powerfully of her experience of losing a friend to growing prejudice, contrasting the possibility of Pride eventually happening in the Borders with the gradual change in her friend. The poem describes riding home on the Tweedbank line with:

…a friend, who for years had been out as bi and very vocal about LGBT rights. We had been falling out lately and I felt that despite her professed status as a trans ally, she implicitly did not accept me as a trans woman. That was the last time I saw her; she went on to become openly transphobic and, last I heard, straight-identifying. The language of the Border Reivers, which the poem is framed around, came to me as the perfect way to express this experience. Their endless skirmishing speaks powerfully to the feeling of these unassuageable battles between my former friend and I, as well as the ‘culture wars’ that framed these interactions: ceaseless, arbitrary conflict that costs everything and means nothing.”

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Gwenhwyfar Ferch Rhys is a writer and spoken word artist from a farm near Hawick. After being appointed a young makar she performed at festivals like StAnza, Wigtown, and Dandelion, and on BBC Radio Scotland and the Commonwealth Games. Her work is published by Gutter, 404Ink, and Bloomsbury.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Today, we begin sharing our shortlisted poems and the first is… The Mo(u)rning After Old Town Pride by Gwenhwyfar Ferch Rhys “while mind made off with spreath of thoughts of how this war become so cultured…”

we’re (g)reiving down the Tweedbank line
through all the cows we could not capture: you,

gala-bound beneath your helm of lais, entire outfit battle-worn:
your winged eyeliner twinned with Jedburgh
staves spattered in glitter dry-blood brown
as the shunt-together-colour of all paraid’s detritus.

And I, so transparent then I’m visible only in reflection -
some bloke’s face a distant shaving in the haft-maker’s-workshop sky -
while mind made off with spreath of thoughts
of how this war become so cultured,
finding the culprit in the raiding plans I’d mustered in my notebook
and diagrams of hacked up kinship groups all convoyed round
this poem. I was already gearing out to storm your inbox later.

And later, you’d retaliate and force a feuding sequence.
But all there was in the Borderlands between us then
was how - if not in Rhymer’s prophecy then at least slating up some Day of Truce –
you hoped that one day this countryside would lie half as open-minded
as it lay
yawningly open
that the Tweed valley would meet us, slopes outstretched enough
to drive our Lawless Marches home from Town,
or at least provide some common ground
that we could meet on, weapons down.
And my only doubt about that hope was that you’d still be queer to see it.

For at the age when we did down our arms it was not to bury the hatchet
but plant ourselves into positions where we’re ever crossing (g)lances
where we reive the land between us
‘til there is no field of battle,
‘til skelpt of flesh and plain bereft
of so much more than cattle.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Gray chose this poem because, “…I found the movement from the isolation and repression of the earlier sections towards the togetherness of the final section really powerful. I also loved the landscape imagery, particularly the way the Tweed and the hills become witnesses to these lives and stories.”

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Seb is a Borders Bairn in their 50s, who grew up here from the age of 4. He is a writer and advocate, a dream wisher and truth seeker. Known by several names and nicknames over the years, he is at peace finally with who he is.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Delighted to present the second of our Runner Up poems… Nae Crowd tae Vanish into by Seb! “The kind of hope that walks wi shakin hauns. The kind of courage that says: I am still here, still staunin. And I am no here alane.”

I. Who’d Hae Thought It?

Borders Pride 2026 – och, who’d hae thought it?
Not the bairn I was.
Not the teenager hiding.
Not the adult still checking the door.
No past version of me could picture this day –
walking open, unhidden, through Galashiels.
No past version of me imagined banners bright as heather,
voices rising where silence used tae stand.
Past me would call it a lie, a trap, a game;
present me still carries that weather in my bones –
aye, but I carry sun there too.

II. No Crowd Tae Vanish Into

I live with the echoes of old days –
the 80s, not gone,
just folded into the haar on the hills.
I live with abandonment, rejection,
the locked door, the lowered voice.
The queer-bashing, the baiting,
the names spat like stones across a close, across a schoolyard, across a toon.
And in the Borders, in the 80s and 90s, there was nae crowd tae vanish into.
A rumour could rin faster than the bus.
A look in the Co-op, a whisper at the bar, a silence at the kirk door –
that could be the whole village passin sentence.
I remember signs on women’s toilets saying no lesbians allowed.
I remember Section 28 – Section 2A here in Scotland –
a law laid like a hand across the mouth
of every teacher who might have said:
you are alright, you are real, you are no alone.
So we learned tae read ourselves in margins, coded words, and glances held a second too long.
I remember friends left tae die from diseases blamed on us for simply being.
I remember HIV and AIDS spoken like punishment, like warning, like proof we deserved the pain.
I remember the papers, the panic, the prayers that sounded more like blame than mercy.
I remember folk dying lonely, and folk living scared tae be touched.
Yet hauns were held anyway. Kettles boiled anyway. Chosen family was made in kitchens, motors, back rooms and borrowed halls.
I remember hope in the 2000s, green as new fields after rain,
only to see it cut back again.
I mind being attacked for who I loved.
In my teens and twenties, I was ordered tae be normal, dress normal, act normal,
towing the line like a single road over moor and moss.
wearing the mask tae stay safe, though I was dying inside.
Telt tae stop being an embarrassment,
tae stop bringing shame tae the family by being who I am.
Told I need tae change my whole name, surname too,
if I wanted tae live visible in my truth.
Made straight, or made quiet,
which is another kind of vanishing, another way tae be buried while breathing.

III. Lanterns

But there were nights when a phone line, open only a couple of evenings a week, felt like a lantern on a black Border road.
And there were days when Edinburgh was oor only freedom –
a place tae disappear and, somehow, be seen.
That took courage.
No the loud kind, always –
sometimes the wee courage of breathing,
of staying,
of keeping one bright ember alive,
cupped in both hands against the wind.
That was courage too:
no just marching when the sun was oot,
but staying alive through the years that tried tae make us disappear.
Courage was keeping your number hidden, your letters folded deep in a drawer.
Courage was takin the last bus hame and hoping naebody guessed where you had been.
Courage was loving quietly in a place where quiet was sometimes how you got by.
When these streets, these villages, these farm roads and market squares were no safe for the likes of us,
we had tae fit in, wear the mask,
let the “aye been” keep us wee, keep us shamed, keep us still.
I could not let Seb exist until my late forties –
and I could not love freely until my late thirties,
even then, saying it safely, loving someone they said I should not.
And still – hope.
Not soft hope. Not easy hope.
The kind of hope that walks wi shakin hauns.
The kind of courage that says: I am still here, still staunin.
And I am no here alane.

IV. Thegither

But look at us now —
gaun doun the High Street,
makin for the Volunteer Hall,
carrying colour through a mill toon
that has seen wool, rain, resilience, and return.
The Tweed keeps moving below the hills –
carrying what was hidden, silvering what survived.
The Eildons stand like three auld witnesses above Melrose.
The ruined abbeys of Melrose, Dryburgh, Kelso and Jedburgh hold their broken arches open tae the sky,
teaching us what is damaged can still be sacred,
what is weathered can still stand, and what stands can still sing.
From Ettrick to Yarrow,
from Peebles to Hawick,
from Selkirk to St Abbs,
the Borders has aye been a place of crossings –
burns crossed, roads crossed, borders crossed, lives crossed.
So let us cross this one thegither.
Let the Cheviot wind carry oor names.
Let the fields, the forestry, the sheep tracks,
the village halls, the market towns and quiet glens ken we are here.
The fight is not over.
The fog still rolls in through politics, law, media, health and fear.
The hate-filled voices are loud just now –
claiming rights over oor truths, oor bodies, oor lives.
Still, we can hold true.
We can be shield and voice, shelter and song.
We can protect, advocate, support and empower one another –
allies and freends, near and far.
We can speak across the valleys.
We can share light across the rural dark.
We can remember there is naething wrong wi us.
There never was.
And on this first Borders Pride,
beneath the wide Border sky,
we do not ask permission tae belong.
The Tweed kens us.
The hills hae heard us.
We belong because we are here – and we are here, thegither.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Judge Gray Crosbie says, “I loved the use of repetition and gentle humour… There’s such a fierce sense of pride and joy running through the poem.… [it] really captured the idea that queer people have always been part of this landscape, even when their stories have been hidden.”

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Chris Rainbeau was born in County Durham and holds a degree in Primary Education. He is passionate about picture books and has been inspired by many great authors. His first book, Once, I Was…, will be published in 2026, with more to follow...

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Presenting the first of our Runner Up poems, Here Comes Pride by Chris Rainbeau! “Let there be no hate. No malice. No shame.”

Here Comes Pride
Chris Rainbeau

I once was a boy,
Or ‘Puff’ as they called me.
With the biggest of secrets.
And nobody knew…

And I played with dolls.
And I brushed ponies’ hair.
And I sang “I’m Coming Out!”
And nobody knew…

And I hid in the classroom.
And I avoided the halls.
And I skipped lots of lessons.
And nobody knew…

And I ran home from school.
And I cried from the bullies.
And I lied to my parents.
And nobody knew…

Yes, the secret I held,
Was the biggest of all.
Then I realised,
Everyone knew.

Then one day they said, “Here comes Pride!”

And I wanted to laugh,
Not because it was funny.
But because,
I’ve always been here.

We didn’t arrive with the bunting,
Or the rainbow flags on the street.
We arrived long before,
(with a gasp or a SNAP!)
We’ve always been here.

In the fields. On the trails.
In the schools. On the trains.
Walking dogs,
Holding hands,
On the beach.

We’ve always been part of this landscape,
Just edited from the postcard.

And a place like The Borders?
Well, surely too quiet…
Too rural, too quaint,
For stories such as ours.

But silence isn’t absence.
Our mouths were just filtered,
And paused.

And a look,
Or a whisper,
To people you trust.

But no longer.

So when they say,
"Here comes Pride."
I say, "Oh, how exciting!"
But I think, "It's about bloody time."

About bloody time…
Our young people,
See someone like them, And take pride.

About bloody time… Rainbow flags are hoisted,
And pluses are welcomed,
Not shunned.

About bloody time… Our partners, our love, Can be displayed,
In the place we belong.

The Eildon hills have watched us grow. The Tweed river has carried our secrets. The wind has always known our names.
Now the town gets to hear them too.

And if you're starting to wonder,
Why we still need Pride…
It's because in some far-away places,
Death will come if you choose not to hide.

So let there be no hate.
No malice.
No shame.

Here's to our very first Pride.
A beginning but also an end,
Of pretending we were never here.

We’ve always been here.

This town has always been yours.
It's just taken a bloody long time.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Adi says of their poem, “Time has a funny way of bringing things back around. Finding ways of connecting with a grandparent you never met, when you’re queer and the generation gap feels vast, is a complicated thing. It can also be wonderful.”

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Gray Crosbie: “…loved how this piece combined Scottish tradition with modern queerness, with the kilt being something inherited but also reclaimed and reimagined. I particularly liked the sense of both constraint and comfort the kilt brings the speaker…”

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Our winner, Adi Novak, lives in Scotland. Their poetry and short fiction often explore queer histories and futures. Most recently, their writing has featured in Extra Teeth, Gutter, and 404 Ink’s Fierce Salvage anthology.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Presenting our FIRST PLACE WINNER…. Your/Grandad’s Kilt by Adi Novak!

Your/Grandad’s Kilt

you put on your/grandad’s kilt
& possibility settles into your knees
held in each proud sprouting leg hair
a scratching weighty warmth unwashed, overlong, hanging
earthy moss pleats & a compression tank
high fashion, genderful

you’ve put on your/grandad’s kilt backwards
& go to google, shamefaced
picking up memory scraps from pixel flickers
that tell you to gather, turn, secure;
your grandad holds his fish on the mantle

you put on your/grandad’s kilt
dyke scrambling & spinning
a james mark 2
scouting for other bois

your/grandad’s kilt
tightens you, belly close.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

The winning poem will be posted later this evening, with the runners up tomorrow, and all the other shortlistees over the coming week! Happy Pride!

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

What a wonderful, WONDERFUL day at the first ever Scottish Borders Pride! I was so pleased to see so many of you there, and to be able to announce our winners. If you missed it, these are:

First place: Your/Grandad’s Kilt - Adi Novak

Runners Up:

Here Comes Pride - Chris Rainbeau

Nae Crowd tae Vanish Into - Seb

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Reposted by Borders Pride Poetry

The Wedale Bookshop @wedale-bookshop.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

We are proud to be sponsoring this competition but don’t envy the judges hard task of choosing the winner. The entries are thought-provoking, heartfelt and, in the current political climate, more important than ever. Good luck to all the entrants!

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The Winners will be contacted shortly, and announced onstage at the Scottish Borders Pride 2026 event in Volunteer Hall in Galashiels. The winning poem will be posted on our socials on the evening of 29th, and our runners up, and shortlisted poems will be shared over the following week.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

If you didn’t make the shortlist, please don’t be discouraged - it was a very hard set of decisions, and poetry is a highly subjective thing. We really encourage you to enter again next year, and to keep writing!

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Our team was deeply moved both by the number and quality of entries, and picking a shortlist was a very difficult job. However, we felt that these poems reflected the richness and uniqueness of what it is to be LGBTQ+ in the Borders, and to be preparing to celebrate our first Borders Pride.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

DRUMROLL PLEASE…. We are delighted to announce the shortlist for the first ever Borders Pride Poetry Competition!

The Borders Pride Poetry Competition 2026

Shortlist

It isn’y Halloween - April Golightly

Your/Grandad’s Kilt - Adi Novak

Here Comes Pride - Chris Rainbeau

The Mo(u)rning After Old Town Pride - Gwenhwyfar Ferch Rhys

Nae Crowd tae Vanish Into - Seb

A Girl in the City, Another on the Edge - Wiccaspellrose

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

All of our entrants sent us work that was raw, honest, and moving. These were poems full of Pride - of pain and struggle, of acceptance and joy - but most of all, a real sense of the Borders communities which we all inhabit. A huge thank you to everyone who submitted to the competition.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Over the next couple of days, our admins will be contacting the shortlisted poets from our competition - and we will be announcing the shortlist publicly at the end of the following week. It has been a real honour and privilege to read these poems and picking a shortlist was incredibly hard.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Note: we have removed the line limit from our competition, as it has been brought to our attention this was not effectively communicated in all quarters, causing some entrants to be unaware of it.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

After Pride, the winning, and shortlisted poems will then be published on the Borders Pride Poetry social media pages.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

From the shortlist, our judge Gray Crosbie, will select the winning and runner-up poems. Winners will be contacted prior to the Borders Pride Celebrations on August 29th, and will be invited to receive their prizes, and to perform their poem as part of the live event.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Now, our team of readers and admins read all the entries submitted and put together a long-list - from which they, and our judge, will select a shortlist. This shortlist will be posted in mid-August. Shortlisted poets will be contacted prior to the publication of the list.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

THE BORDERS PRIDE POETRY COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED. We would like to extend a huge thank you to all our entrants, and to everyone who has advertised the competition, liked and shared our posts, or otherwise supported us. So: What happens now?

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Our poetry competition is now CLOSED. A huge thank you to all our entrants!

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Last day to send us your poems! Our competition closes at midnight tonight. forms.gle/oHTdQVQhKY1y...

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Our poetry competition closes TOMORROW at MIDNIGHT! Send us your entries before then!

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Only a few more days to enter our free poetry competition! Entries close at midnight on Friday 31st! forms.gle/oHTdQVQhKY1y...

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

We do not want your poems to shy away from this pain, or the grief we are feeling as community right now.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Even the black stripe in the Progress Pride flag is associated with the lives lost to, and those living with, HIV. (It has a dual function along with the brown stripe re-centring LGBTQ+ people of colour.)

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Poetry is one of the ways we can talk about our grief and loss, and our competition does not only want to uplift celebratory voices. The community talks a lot about Pride as a celebration, Pride as a protest, but Pride is simultaneously an act of mourning, too.

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Today’s post and prompt is about the way that Pride contains an aspect of mourning and grief. Sorry to bring down our usual cheerful and celebratory tone, but in light of the events in Berlin, we felt it necessary.

To live with Pride is to live with mourning, too. Grief in the LGBTQ+ community can take many forms.

🌹Grief for the years we have lost, not living our true lives 🌹

🌹Grief for those lost to bigotry and prejudice🌹

🌹Grief for the relationships we have lost by embracing our true selves🌹

🌹Grief at seeing our hard-won rights challenged or stripped away🌹

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

It’s Friday! And that means we’re entering the last week of the Borders Pride Poetry Competition. If you’re stuck, here are some prompts about Pride in the Borders! Entry form here or to borderspridepoetry(at)gmail(dot)com: forms.gle/oHTdQVQhKY1y...

Is there conflict between being part of your local community, and part of the LGBTQ+ community?

Is the experience of being LGBTQ+ in the Borders one of difference or of acceptance? Or a mix?

What was your journey to being proud of yourself and your identity?

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Whoever inspires you, you can enter our competition by email, or here: forms.gle/oHTdQVQhKY1y...

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

…Harry Baker and Kae Tempest made me fall in love with spoken word poetry. Nadine Aisha Jassat and Dean Atta write gorgeous verse novels. Hollie McNish, Harry Josephine Giles, Michael Pederson, Aditya Narayan, and many other poets writing in Scotland continue to be constant sources of inspiration.”

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Our judge, Gray Crosbie, on poems and poets that inspire them: “One of the reasons I believe poetry is amazing is because it comes in so many different forms and styles. As a teenager, I was obsessed with Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allan Poe, Edwin Morgan….

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

We’re particularly hoping for more entrants in the Youth category, so if you know any budding, queer poets in the Borders, get them to send us their work for the chance to win a £50 book token!

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

NEW CLOSING DATE: Midnight on 31st July! Borders Pride Poetry competition is extending its submission period until the end of the month. To enter you must be part of the LGBTQ+ spectrum, and live in the Scottish Borders. Entry form here: forms.gle/oHTdQVQhKY1y...

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

You can enter our poetry competition here: forms.gle/oHTdQVQhKY1y...

forms.gle

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Borders Pride Poetry @borderspridepoetry.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

We asked Gray what they look for in poetry: “Poetry that makes me feel something, that stays with me days later. I particularly love poems that are original, honest, surprising, and playful, or that find fresh ways of exploring familiar topics and experiences.” Photo (c) Push the Boat Out

A picture of Gray - a white person with curly hair, wearing an ochre jumper with mushrooms on it- performing against a black background.

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