The 6th Paisley Book Festival opened its doors with a poetic roar, and what a lunchtime treat it was. Hosted with charm and wit by Annie Rutherford, the Poet’s Corner stream set the bar high with a trio of mesmerising voices: Andrés N. Ordorica, Charles Lang, and Lorna Callery-Sitole. The theme? Coming of Age: Poems on Growing Up. The result? A lyrical punch to the heart, equal parts nostalgia, defiance, and revelation.
First up, Charles Lang read from his debut collection, The Oasis. His poems offered a tender, sharply observed journey through the landscapes of adolescence in Glasgow – where identity is forged from both culture and place.
Lang’s poems conjured images so vivid I was transported back to my own adolescence: A shopping trolley clogging up the park burn, hoarding crisp packets like artefacts. A brand-new pair of trainers, weighed down by an exhaustive list of “do’s and don’ts”. The trials and tribulations of having a football sticker album. Getting chased by the polis – then doubling back, with newly changed clothes to defiantly pass them again, asking ‘whit yeez been uptae the night?’
Every image rings true, especially if you’ve grown up, as I have, in West Central Scotland. His poetry doesn’t just describe a place – it feels like one. I hadn’t heard Charles Lang read before, so I’m glad his poetic talents no longer elude me. He’s one truly exciting prospect.
Then came Lorna Callery-Sitole, a seasoned performer who owned the space the moment she unclipped the mic and stepped forward. Her presence was electric – projector light strobing across her as she moved with the pulse of her poems.
In Brick, we’re placed beside a nine-year-old, witnessing her brother return from a gang fight in Pollok, bloodied and battle-worn.
In Tree People, we’re hurled – body and soul – back to the early ’90s, to the protest occupation of Pollok Park against the M74 extension. This is resistance. This is collective idealism. And all too depressingly, this represents a level of defiance that has long since been hammered out of the working-class communities of Glasgow. Then Click, a poignant, ambiguous return to a changed Pollok after a tragic loss in Spain. And finally, Halfway in Bloom – a stirring, defiant anthem ‘for every young person out there’.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any richer, Andrés N. Ordorica took to the lectern. A Latinx poet based in Edinburgh, he read from across his stunning body of work, including his latest collection Holy Boys.
His poetry moves effortlessly between English and Spanish, faith and queerness, reverence and rebellion. Raised in the Catholic Church but pulled towards the queer community, Ordorica’s verse dances between these identities with elegance and fire. His work doesn’t just explore language – it explores experience, with all its painful contradictions intact.
It’s no easy gig following two such powerful performers, but if anyone was to pull it off, Andrés was certainly the very person for the task.
At the end, Annie asked the poets what it means to come of age.
Lorna reflected on battles not fought until adulthood, the “unpicking” that only maturity allows. She shared that writing in Scots vernacular was a new, powerful act of reclamation for her – having long defaulted to English. “It came from going back to Pollok,” she said, “after years of telling people I was from the Southside.” In order to make sense of it all, she had to revert to her own language, to own her past.
Andrés spoke to the shared awkward rites of passage we all endure – the universality of hormonal changes, emotional chaos, bodily transformation, and the blessed relief of having navigated it all before the rise of social media.
Then Charles gave us a closing line for the ages:
“Poetry is the ultimate form of communitarianism, because there’s nothing else to play for. You exist in a community of poets that only grows, drawing in all those you come into contact with… through poetry.”
Amen to that.
If this event is anything to go by, Paisley Book Festival 2025 is going to be an unforgettable celebration of The Lives We Live.
Joe Smith
