Jennifer Williams

And it's been gorgeous to get to hear these poems in your voice and hear you talk a little bit about your experiences.

And I'm excited for the memoir and to read poems that come in future.

It would be great if you could leave us with a poem as well.

Hello, this is Jennifer Williams, Programme Manager at the Scottish Poetry Library, and it is my pleasure to be sitting in the library with

Jem Rolls.

Jem Rolls is someone who I feel like has been a great teacher for me in many ways because he's one of the first poets and at the time and he still is he was very much also a poetry promoter and someone putting on poetry events when I first came to Edinburgh in 2001 and he was very encouraging and supportive to me and gave me some of the first platforms for reading my own poems in public and

I feel like helped teach me a lot about how to put on poetry events and promote them and ran a wonderful festival years ago in Edinburgh.

The Edinburgh Rush.

And that involved all sorts of spoken word events that were on in Edinburgh at the time.

And Jem was also running first with Anita Govan and then with Jenny and Lindsay.

Oh, I forgot about the Rob G bit.

Yes.

General's is also known as the godfather of, what is it, the godfather of spoken word?

You know, I remember talking to you over the years and something that always struck me about your belief or philosophy in what you did and in performance was that

that I thought was very moving was that it actually did only exist in the room between you and the people listening to you.

And that meant it was more special in a way than something that was published or recorded and that you could go back to again and again.

And I've always loved that idea of that very special relationship that you add to performance and poetry.

But I think, oh, well, go on.

Well, the best way to experience Gem is in person, but a very special treat we've got for you is that he's going to read some, well, perform?

Read?