Hannah Lavery is a Scottish poet, playwright and performer. Her poetry and prose has been published by ''
Gutter Magazine'', ''
The Scotsman
''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact (newspaper), compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until ...
'' newspaper, ''404 Ink'', and others. In September 2021 she took on the role of
Edinburgh Makar
A makar () is a term from Scottish literature for a poet or bard, often thought of as a royal court poet.
Since the 19th century, the term ''The Makars'' has been specifically used to refer to a number of poets of fifteenth and sixteenth cent ...
.
Work
Lavery's poetry pamphlet, ''Finding Seaglass: Poems from The Drift'' was published by Stewed Rhubarb Press in May 2019. She has also been a featured poet at many spoken word and poetry nights including
Neu! Reekie!, Sonnet Youth, and festivals including
Stanza Poetry Festival and
Edinburgh International Book Festival
The Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) is a book festival that takes place during two weeks in August every year in the centre of Edinburgh, Scotland. Described as ''The largest festival of its kind in the world'', the festival hosts ...
. Lavery was awarded a Megaphone Residency for Artists of Colour by The Workers' Theatre in 2016.
''The Drift'', her autobiographical play, was produced by
National Theatre of Scotland
The National Theatre of Scotland, established in 2006, is the national theatre company of Scotland. The company has no theatre building of its own; instead it tours work to theatres, village halls, schools and site-specific locations, both at h ...
and went on tour in 2019.
Lavery's ''Lament for Sheku Bayoh'', commissioned by the
Royal Lyceum Theatre
The Royal Lyceum Theatre is a 658-seat theatre in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, named after the Theatre Royal Lyceum and English Opera House, the residence at the time of legendary Shakespearean actor Henry Irving. It was built in 1883 by a ...
, was performed as a work in progress as part of the
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual arts festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, spread over the final three weeks in August. Notable figures from the international world of music (especially european classical music, classical music) and ...
2019. Over the following year, the play was completed and reimagined for a digital audience and streamed from the stage of the Royal Lyceum Theatre as part of a National Theatre of Scotland, Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Lyceum Theatre co-production in 2020.
Sheku Bayoh was a 31-year-old gas engineer, husband and father of two who died in police custody in his home town,
Kirkcaldy
Kirkcaldy ( ; ; ) is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It is about north of Edinburgh and south-southwest of Dundee. The town had a recorded population of 49,460 in 2011, making it Fife's second-largest s ...
, Fife, on 3 May 2015. A personal response to this tragic event, ''Lament for Sheku Bayoh'' throws up questions of identity, community, and belonging in Scotland today, and is an instruction and a reflection on a life lost and the society—our society—who lost it and looked the other way. Critic
Mark Fisher
Mark Fisher (11 July 1968 – 13 January 2017), also known under his blogging alias k-punk, was an English writer, music critic, political and cultural theorist, philosopher, and teacher based in the Department of Visual Cultures at Golds ...
, writing in ''The Guardian'', described the work as "...impassioned, poetic and alive with political import." Joyce McMillan writing in ''The Scotsman'' described the production as "a beautiful and shattering ritual of rage and mourning that – in the year of
George Floyd
George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an African-American man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd had used a counterfeit tw ...
and
Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a Decentralization, decentralized political and social movement that aims to highlight racism, discrimination and Racial inequality in the United States, racial inequality experienced by black people, and to pro ...
– is both painfully familiar, and new in its insistence that here too, in bonnie Scotland, black people sometimes cannot breathe, purely because of the colour of their skin." The play was written and directed by Lavery. The cast were Saskia Ashdown, Patricia Panther and Courtney Stoddart, with music by Beldina Odenyo/Heir of the Cursed.
She has contributed to the
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...
series ''The Poet and the Echo'', and has been announced as one of Imaginate's Accelerator artists, where she will work on a new piece of writing for ages 10+ called ''The Protest''. The work will explore the moments, the encounters and the individual and collective journey to The Protest and to activism of three young people.
Awards
In November 2019, Lavery was awarded a New Playwright Award from Playwrights Studio Scotland and was named in ''
The List'' magazine's Scottish Theatre Hot List for 2019. In 2020, she was named as one on BBC Writers Room Scottish Voices of 2020, as well as being chosen by poet and playwright
Owen Sheers
Owen Sheers (born 20 September 1974) is a Welsh poet, author, playwright and television presenter. He was the first writer-in-residence to be appointed by any national rugby union team.
Early life
Owen Sheers was born in Suva, Fiji, and was ...
as one of ten writers currently asking questions that will shape the UK's future, as part of the
British Council
The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lang ...
and
National Centre for Writing
The National Centre for Writing, formerly Writers' Centre Norwich, is a literature development agency and national centre for writing based in Norwich, England. It led the successful bid for Norwich to be granted the UNESCO City of Literature tit ...
's International Literature Showcase.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lavery, Hannah
21st-century Scottish poets
Scottish women poets
Living people
1977 births