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Tom Pow: The Vulnerability of Precious Things – Encounters with Simone Weil

LAUNCH – Monday 20 April 2026, Fruitmarket Gallery, 45 Market St, Edinburgh EH1 1DF, 6.30pm. Reading by Tom Pow. French songs from Christina Whyte. All welcome.

Simone Weil (1909-1943) was one of the twentieth-century’s most significant thinkers and inspirational figures. Her philosophy and how she lived her life are intimately connected. Her ideas on affliction, attention and force are as vital now as they were when she described them, while the harshness of her life still moves us.

Tom Pow’s poems (or ‘encounters’) engage with her short life and the times through which she lived. The resulting work – varied, thought-provoking and moving – is a work of imaginative empathy that makes clear Weil’s relevance to the world today.

Tom Pow was born in Edinburgh in 1950. He has published many poetry pamphlets and collections, including In the Becoming: New and Selected Poems (Polygon, 2009). Recent collections are Naranjas (Galileo, 2021) and Svetlena’s Dance: Triptychs (Mariscat Press, 2022). He lives in Dumfries.

To order a copy, email hamish.whyte@btinternet.com. Pay £12.00 by BACS (Bank of Scotland / Sort code 80 15 59 / Account no. 00413102) or cheque (made out to Mariscat Press and sent to 10 Bell Place, Edinburgh EH3 5HT). There is no charge for postage and packing. For overseas orders: contact Molecular Press at www.molecularpress.com

MARISCAT presS Wins THE 2023 MICHAEL MARKS publishers’ AWARD

The judges said:

Two Mariscat pamphlets MX SIMP by Kate Hendry and Skin and Blister by Blake Morrison made it onto our shortlist for the Poetry Award. Their submission also included three other extraordinary and wonderful pamphlets. We were impressed by the consistently high standard of the poetry, and the individuality that shone through the presentation of each pamphlet even while it retained a Mariscat ‘feel’ (partly literally, as Mariscat pamphlets are very tactile objects). We also found the scrupulous attention paid to finding the right typeface for each pamphlet incredibly impressive (and a bit mad?!). What a wonderful Press.