The intimacy you capture in Origin of the wonder growing in you and of your own body is thrilling to read.
I loved the way all the differing sensations found their forms in Origin – from the nakedly honest memoir to the lilt of folk tales and folk memory.
There is a bonus to readers of the work that you had acquired the technical skills and the emotional acuity to express and to give praise to the great mystery. Here, you have fully acknowledged love and an ecstatic and grateful joy.
Tom Pow
JL Williams is a contemporary poet, performer, and educator whose work explores themes of myth, metaphysics, nature and the human experience through a lyrical and often superreal lens. Born in New Jersey, USA, and based in Edinburgh, Scotland, Williams has a strong international presence, blending American and Scottish literary traditions with a distinctive voice that often challenges and expands the boundaries of poetry. Her poetry collections include Condition of Fire (2004), Locust and Marlin (2014), After Economy (2017), Origin (2022) and Strange Architectures (2026), which have garnered critical acclaim for their vivid imagery, emotional depth, and innovative use of form.
Williams is also known for her collaborative projects, integrating poetry with other art forms such as music, dance, perfume and visual art. She wrote the libretto for the opera Snow which debuted in London in 2017, was awarded a bursary to develop a new opera with composer Samantha Fernando at the Royal Opera House and was a librettist for the award-winning 2020 covid-response Episodes project by The Opera Story. She was commissioned to write the 2023 English Touring Opera children’s opera, The Wish Gatherer. She was selected for the 2015 Jerwood Opera Writing Programme and for the TRG3 Residency Programme at Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh. She is a founding member of 12, a collective of women writers. At the Edinburgh International Festival 2026, a new song cycle called ‘Medusa’, with text by JL Williams and music by Stuart MacRae, will be performed by Beth Taylor and Hamish Brown at The Queen’s Hall.
Williams also works as Creative Projects Manager at the Edinburgh Futures Institute and curates events, projects and workshops – such as Utopia Lab – that explore creativity, embodiment and our ability to dream the future in order to create a beautiful present. As of December 2025, she is a certified yoga teacher giving classes and workshops in Edinburgh – see Utopia Yoga for more information and to book.
As a curator and promoter of poetry events, she has been instrumental in fostering vibrant literary communities, particularly in Scotland. A recipient of several grants and awards, including an Edwin Morgan Travel Bursary, Williams’ work has been featured in many anthologies and journals and translated into numerous languages. She has read at international literature festivals and venues in the UK, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Turkey, Cyprus, Canada, Hungary, Romania, Montenegro and the US. Through her poetry and teaching, she continues to inspire new generations of writers and readers.
http://www.jlwilliamspoetry.co.uk
Facebook: Jennifer Lynn Williams
Instagram: @jlwpoetry
COLLECTIONS
Strange Architectures, Shearsman, 2026
Origin, Shearsman, 2022
After Economy, Shearsman, 2017
House of the Tragic Poet, If A Leaf Falls Press, 2016
Our Real Red Selves, Vagabond Poets, 2015
Locust and Marlin, Shearsman, 2014
Condition of Fire, Shearsman, 2011
FESTIVAL READINGS
Push the Boat Out Festival 2025, Edinburgh, Scotland
Edinburgh International Book Festival 2024, Edinburgh, Scotland
StAnza Poetry Festival 2024, St Andrews, Scotland
Edinburgh International Book Festival 2023, Edinburgh, Scotland
Thessaloniki Book Fair 2023, Thessaloniki, Greece
Lighthouse Book Fringe 2022, Edinburgh, Scotland
Newcastle Poetry Festival 2022, Newcastle, England
Coastword 2019, Dunbar, Scotland
Ratkovic’s Poetry Evenings 2018, Bijelo Polje, Montenegro
Edinburgh International Book Festival 2017, Edinburgh, Scotland
FISZ-tábor 2017, Visegrad, Hungary
Zona Nouă International Festival (Z9Festival) 2017, Sibiu, Romania
Festival de la Poésie de Montreal 2016, Montreal, Canada
7th Annual Iskele Municipality Culture and Art Days 2016, North Cyprus
Edinburgh International Book Festival 2015, Edinburgh, Scotland
International Eskişehir Poetry Festival 2015, Eskişehir, Turkey
Aye Write! Book Festival 2015, Glasgow, Scotland
StAnza International Poetry Festival 2015, St Andrews, Scotland
Aye Write! Book Festival 2013, Glasgow, Scotland
COLLABORATIONS
At the Edinburgh International Festival 2026, a new song cycle called ‘Medusa’, with text by JL Williams and music by Stuart MacRae, will be performed by Beth Taylor and Hamish Brown at The Queen’s Hall.
Caledonian Portraits, a collaboration with composer and musician Greg Harradine, was written and performed in 2022.
Wrote the poetry for a groundbreaking poetry / music / video game by the extraordinary artist composer Lucie Treacher. It’s called Sleep Circus, 2021
Awarded a bursary and development opportunity as part of the ENGENDER project with the Librettist Network and the Royal Opera House, with composer Samantha Fernando, 2019
Commissioned to write a libretto – Lifting the Multiverse – for the Serial Opera Project 2019, ENAensemble, Philadelphia, USA, 2019
In the Ink Dark: commissioned writing for curator Luke Pell’s large scale multimedia exploration of memory and mortality, 2016-2017
Presence, Orestes, Presence: commissioned writing for artist Anneli Holmstrom’s -}}}}}} : {{{+}}} exhibition at Summerhall, May-July 2017
Between poles / And tides, performance and audio installation: collaboration with artist Catherine Street, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, April 2017
The Glass Scene, a collaboration with Iain Morrison, performed at Vine Box, April 2017
Manifestations of Power, a collaboration with Roxana Vilk, performed at Vespers 6, March 2017
New poetic audio work, Between poles, exhibited as part of the Talbot Rice Gallery show Between poles and tides, Spring 2017
content work produce form, a collaboration of 12 women writers for Cooper Gallery, Dundee, December 2016
Writer-in-Residence at British Art Show 8 with Catherine Street
Selected for 2016/17 TRG3 Residency at Talbot Rice Gallery with artist Catherine Street
Commissioned to write Snow, a libretto based on the story of Snow White for The Opera Story, 2016
Relativity and Revelation, a new piece by composer Sarah Lianne Lewis including settings of my poems, performed live and broadcast on France Musique as part of her Voice and Creation residency in Aix-en-Provence at Festival d’Aix
Hail of Bright Stones (formerly known as Opul) and various musical projects with composer and musician James Iremonger
Chiaroscuro Pentimenti with artist Anna Chapman and composer Martin Parker
Continuum with artist Catherine Street and composers/sound designers Martin Parker and Owen Green
Unforeseen at Hidden Door Festival 2015, live improvisation with Catherine Street, resident artists Hans Clausen, Charlie Knox, Martin Sweeny and audience
The Process of Content: on a temporality in contemporary art, Cooper Gallery, Dundee, reading with Catherine Street
Reading and Identity Conference, National Library of Scotland, reading with Catherine Street
12-hour Jamming Symposium, Cooper Gallery, Dundee, reading with Catherine Street
Filmpoems Condition of Fire and Trinity with artist Alastair Cook
AWARDS
Episodes, 2020 RPS Inspiration Award winner
Locust and Marlin shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Poetry Book of the Year, 2014
Edwin Morgan Travel Bursary, 2009
Scottish Arts Council Grant for Chiaroscuro Pentimenti, 2006
ANTHOLOGIES
Pink Witch, with 12 collective, Mainpoint Books, 2024
Spaces Open, with 12 collective, Mainpoint Books, 2023
Of Other Spaces, with 12 collective, Sternberg Press, 2019
Best of the Best Scottish Poems, 2019
Scotia Extremis, 2018
154: 154 contemporary poets write 154 poems, responding to Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, Live Canon, 2016
Umbrellas of Edinburgh, 2016
Best Scottish Poems, 2015
Best Scottish Poems, 2014
Be The First To Like This, Vagabond Voices, 2014
Alquimia Del Fuego, Amargord Ediciones, Spanish Anthology of Fire Poems, 2014
Quaich: An Anthology of Translation in Scotland Today, 2014
Best Scottish Poems, 2013
New Writing Scotland 30, 2012
Best Scottish Poems, 2011
TRANSLATIONS
She has translated poetry from Hungarian, Spanish and Greek, and her poetry has been translated into Spanish, French, Dutch, Polish, German, Turkish and Greek.
JL Williams on the poet CP Cavafy.
The distinction between historian and poet is not in the one writing prose and the other verse – you might put the work of Herodotus into verse, and it would still be a species of history; it consists really in this, that the one describes the thing that has been, and the other a kind of thing that might be. Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars. Aristotle in The Poetics
JL Williams Poetry 