Roshni Gallagher Launch Readings

‘What impresses me most about this debut collection is its honouring of our humanity, the naming of ordinary people with extraordinary lives. The Kala Pani sequence epitomises this: poignant, exquisite and haunting. Roshni Gallagher’s poems are so visceral, so perceptive, so adept in their use of echoes and white space, they will, to quote her, make you “vigilant when you walk down a street”.' – Patience Agbabi

 

In her first full-length collection Even the Trees, Roshni Gallagher asks what can be seen, named or remembered. From Scotland to Guyana, the poems explore the porous boundary between the past and the present, and how ecological landscapes and landscapes of the mind and body are permanently altered by migration and memory.

The elegiac series of poems Kala Pani reflects on the history and legacy of Indian indentured labourers in the Caribbean. Following the experience of women in the moment of rupture as they cross the ocean, these poems hover at the border of what is known and unknown. Other poems navigate stories from Gallagher’s mixed heritage, from the Windrush generation to the sod houses in Ireland. She explores the tension between historical and personal silence – what can and can’t be spoken about.

Even the Trees was a joint winner of the James Berry Poetry Prize 2024, and is on the shortlist for the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection 2026, one of the Forward Prizes. It will be published by Bloodaxe Books on 17 September 2026.

Roshni Gallagher is a poet from Leeds of mixed Indo-Guyanese and Irish heritage. She lives in Edinburgh. She has received an Edwin Morgan Poetry Award (2022) and a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award (2022), and was joint winner of the James Berry Poetry Prize in 2024. Her pamphlet Bird Cherry was published by VERVE Poetry Press in 2023. Her first book-length collection, Even the Trees, is published by Bloodaxe Books in September 2026, and is on the shortlist for the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection 2026 (Forward Prizes). She has an MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from the University of St Andrews.

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Three poems from Roshni Gallagher’s debut collection Even the Trees are featured online at Books from Scotland ahead of publication.  Read online here.

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Roshni Gallagher and Clementine Ewokolo Burnley, two of the three joint winners of the James Berry Poetry Prize 2024, are based in Edinburgh.  They will be giving several joint readings in Scotland, starting with a joint launch event for Even the Trees and Belling the Leopard at the Portobello Bookshop in Edinburgh on Thursday 24 September, 7-8pm.  Details below.

'These two debut collections, both winners of the James Berry Poetry Prize, present very exciting and distinct voices. They also complement each other in unexpected ways, which is perhaps a testament to the prize itself as well as its namesake poet. James Berry was well known for his diversity of language and style, and Clementine Ewokolo Burnley and Roshni Gallagher pay tribute to this legacy in their own unique ways, with many particularly Scottish twists throughout.' – Sean Wai Keung, Gutter

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS

 

Thursday 24 September, 7pm

Joint Edinburgh launch event for Even the Trees and Belling the Leopard

Portobello Bookshop, Edinburgh

Roshni Gallagher and Clementine Ewokolo Burnley celebrate the publication of their brand new collections, Gallagher's Even the Trees and Burnley's Belling the Leopard, with poetry readings and conversation.

More details and booking here. (Livestream and book/ticket bundles available)

Roshni Gallagher and Clementine Ewokolo Burnley are both based in Edinburgh. More details of other planned joint readings in Scotland to be announced.

 

Berwick Literary Festival, Saturday 10 October, 2pm-3.15pm

Berwick Parish Centre, Parade, Berwick-upon-Tweed, TD15 1DF

Bloodaxe Poets: James Berry Poetry Prizewinners

Clementine Ewokolo Burnley, Nadine El-Enany and Roshni Gallagher were the three joint winners of Bloodaxe’s James Berry Poetry Prize 2024.

They will be reading from their debut collections, Belling the Leopard, Pelican Daughter and Even the Trees, which are published by Bloodaxe in September 2026.  Introduced by Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley.

All tickets: £10

Further information & bookings here.

Saturday 24 October 2026, 7.30pm

Forward Prize Readings, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London

The Forward Prize Ceremony and Readings will be held at London's Southbank Centre on 24 October 2026. All the shortlisted poets will be invited to perform live before the winners are revealed. Roshni Gallagher's debut collection Even the Trees is on the shortlist for the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection. 

Tishani Doshi's fifth collection, Egrets, While War is on the shortlist for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2026. 

In person tickets: £14

https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/the-2026-forward-prizes-for-poetry-ceremony/

Livestream tickets: free 

https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/the-2026-forward-prizes-for-poetry-ceremony-live-stream/

[07 August 2026]

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