This is the website of Edinburgh-based poet and translator Ken Cockburn.

Latest News (September 2026)

I got good feedback from August’s poetry walks (part of the Edinburgh Fringe 2026), including a review (with some great photos) from Jonathan Mandell for New York Theatre.

Submissions for the next issue (#86) of Presence Haiku Journal are open till 30th September. More details on the Presence website here.

After the Fringe I led a poetry walk in Stonehaven, as part of the Wee Gaitherin festival, for a group from Mackie Academy. It was good to visit the town again, and to pair places and poems.

The most recent issue of painted, spoken (#46) is a tribute to Peter McCarey, who turned 70 this month. I was pleased to share some memories of my encounters with Peter and his work, in prose and two short poems.

“… repeatedly in Cockburn’s poetry you get the impression of a poet who has sown nothing but good will in his craft and is slowly reaping this in his work.”
Richie McCaffrey, on Floating the Woods

“Every so often I come across a book of poems that is irresistible for the absolute ‘rightness’ of its project; a book that has that unerring quality of integrity, craft and communication with the reader; a book that’s doing something slightly out of the ordinary, but wearing that difference in an unostentatious manner. This was that book for me. A delight.” Andy Brown, on The Road North

“From the outset, I find the poems, their ingredients and flavour, and your meticulous joy with words, a delight.”
Stewart Conn, on On the flyleaf

“It is refreshing to read contemporary poetry of such rare grace and compassion… a welcome contribution to the literature of our nomadic century.” Tom Hubbard, on Souvenirs and Homelands