Argonaut Books

Available

£0.00

Poetry Event - Dares Paradise, translated from the Gaelic by Taylor Strickland // Tuesday 17th November @ 7pm

Available

Join us in the bookshop for an evening with Taylor Strickland to celebrate his new translation of 'Dares Paradise' by Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair. This event will be chaired by Niall Campbell, and they be joined by fellow poets Anthony Capildeo, Tim Tim Cheng, David Kinloch and Petra Pancarova. Copies of the book will be available for purchase on the evening.

...

Little of Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair’s biography can be confirmed other than his work as a teacher in Scotland’s Ardnamurchan Peninsula and his role as a captain in the 1745 Jacobite Uprising. What we do have is his poetry—one volume self-published in 1751, the first nonreligious work to be published in any of the Celtic languages. Dares Paradise presents two long poems by mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, newly translated by Taylor Strickland. In his translation, Strickland—himself a poet—takes a subversive approach, writing in a transatlantic English idiom with Scots and Gaelic inflections. This is mac Mhaighstir Alasdair for the twenty-first century Anglophone reader.

The poems offer a rare pre- and post-battle perspective on a world, and a language, at risk of disappearing. The first, “Allt an t-Siùcair,” is a lyrical celebration of place, a vivid evocation of the landscape of the peninsula at Britain’s westernmost edge. The second, “Birlinn Chlann Raghnaill,” considered mac Mhaighstir Alasdair’s masterpiece, conjures instead a placelessness, recounting an epic sea journey from the Hebridean island of South Uist to Ireland that can be read as an allegory for persistence. For both poems, the English translation and Gaelic original appear on facing pages.

...

Taylor Strickland is an award-winning poet and translator. His latest books are Dares Paradise
(Princeton University Press, 2026) and Dwell Time (Tapsalteerie, 2025).

Trinidadian Scottish writer Anthony Vahni Capildeo FRSL is Professor at the University of York, an
Honorary Student of Christ Church, Oxford, and a Lay Dominican. Their poetry has been recognized
with awards including the Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry, the OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry, and
the Saltire Award. Capildeo has guest-edited the Royal Society of Literature magazine and an
ecopoetics issue of Stand magazine, and served as a contributing editor at PN Review and
the Caribbean Review of Books, and a contributing advisor at Blackbox Manifold. Masqueraders:
Selected Essays is their most recent book.

Niall Campbell is a poet from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. His first poetry collection, 'Moontide',
won the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award and Saltire First Book of the Year. 'Noctuary', his second
collection, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2019. A selection from these
first two books were published in the U.S. as 'First Nights', part of the Princeton Series of
Contemporary Poets. His most recent collection, 'The Island in the Sound', was also shortlisted for
the Forward Prize Best Collection in 2025. He has worked as a librettist with the BBC Philharmonic
Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and is the editor of the acclaimed poetry journal
Poetry London.

Tim Tim Cheng wrote The Tattoo Collector (Nine Arches Press, 2024) and Tapping At Glass (Verve,
2023). They co-edited Magma 93: Liberation (2025) and Where Else: An International Hong Kong
Poetry Anthology (Verve, 2023). A former mentee with American Literary Translators Association,
they translate between Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin) and English.
David Kinloch is from Glasgow. He is the author of six collections of poetry, mostly published by
Carcanet Press and of a monograph on the French thinker, Joseph Joubert. His critical work has
ranged widely, including work on Mallarmé, Québécois theatre, Translation Studies and Edwin
Morgan. His most recent publications are Greengown: New and Selected Poems (2022) and a short
play in Scots, Esther (Blue Diode, 2025) which gives an imaginary voice to the Scottish Renaissance
calligrapher, Esther Inglis. He was a co-founder and Chair of The Edwin Morgan Trust and is currently
an emeritus professor of poetry at the University of Strathclyde.

Petra Johana Poncarová is a researcher, translator, and writer, working between Czech, Gaelic, and
English. Her Gaelic poems have appeared in Aimsir, Cabhsair, Steall and New Writing Scotland, and
she has read her work in Scotland, England, and Germany. In 2025, she received a New Writers
Award.

...

Event FAQ

How do I get to the bookshop?

We are a minutes walk from the Foot of the Walk Tram Stop and are situated on all major bus routes which run down Leith Walk, with the 7,14,16,25 and 49 stopping directly outside our front door. If you’re driving, we have a big Tesco car park right behind the shop whihch allows for up to three hours parking.

Will your café remain open?

Our café will stay open to provide both hot and cold drinks throughout the evening.

What are your accessibility arrangements in the shop?

Our shop is a fully accessible venue, set over one level and designed to acccomodate both wheelchairs and prams. Do let us know should you have any further accessibility concerns and a member of staff will be happy to help.

Available

£0.00

Join us in the bookshop for an evening with Taylor Strickland to celebrate his new translation of 'Dares Paradise' by Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair. This event will be chaired by Niall Campbell, and they be joined by fellow poets Anthony Capildeo, Tim Tim Cheng, David Kinloch and Petra Pancarova. Copies of the book will be available for purchase on the evening.

...

Little of Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair’s biography can be confirmed other than his work as a teacher in Scotland’s Ardnamurchan Peninsula and his role as a captain in the 1745 Jacobite Uprising. What we do have is his poetry—one volume self-published in 1751, the first nonreligious work to be published in any of the Celtic languages. Dares Paradise presents two long poems by mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, newly translated by Taylor Strickland. In his translation, Strickland—himself a poet—takes a subversive approach, writing in a transatlantic English idiom with Scots and Gaelic inflections. This is mac Mhaighstir Alasdair for the twenty-first century Anglophone reader.

The poems offer a rare pre- and post-battle perspective on a world, and a language, at risk of disappearing. The first, “Allt an t-Siùcair,” is a lyrical celebration of place, a vivid evocation of the landscape of the peninsula at Britain’s westernmost edge. The second, “Birlinn Chlann Raghnaill,” considered mac Mhaighstir Alasdair’s masterpiece, conjures instead a placelessness, recounting an epic sea journey from the Hebridean island of South Uist to Ireland that can be read as an allegory for persistence. For both poems, the English translation and Gaelic original appear on facing pages.

...

Taylor Strickland is an award-winning poet and translator. His latest books are Dares Paradise
(Princeton University Press, 2026) and Dwell Time (Tapsalteerie, 2025).

Trinidadian Scottish writer Anthony Vahni Capildeo FRSL is Professor at the University of York, an
Honorary Student of Christ Church, Oxford, and a Lay Dominican. Their poetry has been recognized
with awards including the Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry, the OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry, and
the Saltire Award. Capildeo has guest-edited the Royal Society of Literature magazine and an
ecopoetics issue of Stand magazine, and served as a contributing editor at PN Review and
the Caribbean Review of Books, and a contributing advisor at Blackbox Manifold. Masqueraders:
Selected Essays is their most recent book.

Niall Campbell is a poet from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. His first poetry collection, 'Moontide',
won the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award and Saltire First Book of the Year. 'Noctuary', his second
collection, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2019. A selection from these
first two books were published in the U.S. as 'First Nights', part of the Princeton Series of
Contemporary Poets. His most recent collection, 'The Island in the Sound', was also shortlisted for
the Forward Prize Best Collection in 2025. He has worked as a librettist with the BBC Philharmonic
Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and is the editor of the acclaimed poetry journal
Poetry London.

Tim Tim Cheng wrote The Tattoo Collector (Nine Arches Press, 2024) and Tapping At Glass (Verve,
2023). They co-edited Magma 93: Liberation (2025) and Where Else: An International Hong Kong
Poetry Anthology (Verve, 2023). A former mentee with American Literary Translators Association,
they translate between Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin) and English.
David Kinloch is from Glasgow. He is the author of six collections of poetry, mostly published by
Carcanet Press and of a monograph on the French thinker, Joseph Joubert. His critical work has
ranged widely, including work on Mallarmé, Québécois theatre, Translation Studies and Edwin
Morgan. His most recent publications are Greengown: New and Selected Poems (2022) and a short
play in Scots, Esther (Blue Diode, 2025) which gives an imaginary voice to the Scottish Renaissance
calligrapher, Esther Inglis. He was a co-founder and Chair of The Edwin Morgan Trust and is currently
an emeritus professor of poetry at the University of Strathclyde.

Petra Johana Poncarová is a researcher, translator, and writer, working between Czech, Gaelic, and
English. Her Gaelic poems have appeared in Aimsir, Cabhsair, Steall and New Writing Scotland, and
she has read her work in Scotland, England, and Germany. In 2025, she received a New Writers
Award.

...

Event FAQ

How do I get to the bookshop?

We are a minutes walk from the Foot of the Walk Tram Stop and are situated on all major bus routes which run down Leith Walk, with the 7,14,16,25 and 49 stopping directly outside our front door. If you’re driving, we have a big Tesco car park right behind the shop whihch allows for up to three hours parking.

Will your café remain open?

Our café will stay open to provide both hot and cold drinks throughout the evening.

What are your accessibility arrangements in the shop?

Our shop is a fully accessible venue, set over one level and designed to acccomodate both wheelchairs and prams. Do let us know should you have any further accessibility concerns and a member of staff will be happy to help.