The poets of Edinburgh are going about their day – recording podcasts, brewing small batch craft gins, and working their second demoralising temp job – but oh! They rise like meerkats. The poets of Edinburgh have heard a cry on the wind. It whispers to them in a voice like photocopied eviction notices. It repeats the same four words again and again: “The Fringe Is Coming! The Fringe is Coming! The Fringe is Coming!”

They know, then, that they must flee their homes. Especially the ones whose landlords have turfed them out anyway.

To be a poet from Edinburgh in August is to be a ghost reflected in a pool of still water.

In order to prove they are worthy of attention – the only thing that sustains them – they must slam, because a Poetry Slam is of course the fairest and most evenhanded way to judge poetic merit, and survival.

Learn more here.