Poetry pop-ups bring Commonwealth voices to the River Clyde

Over the next two weeks, residents and visitors to Glasgow are being asked to consider ‘who owns the Clyde’ as part of the Glasgow 2026 Festival.

A series of poetry pop-up events inviting people to look at the River Clyde with fresh eyes are being run by The Empire Café. They take place across two weekends during the Commonwealth Games and Merchant City Festival.

The events will bring poetry, conversation and creativity directly to the water's edge, encouraging people to spend time with the river and imagine new possibilities for its future.

Glasgow’s city centre waterfront hosts the series of events between 24 and 26 July and 31 July and 2 August. Locations for the pop-ups include the Squiggly Bridge, La Passionata, Clutha Corner, The Briggait and Glasgow Green. Members of the Watershed team will travel by cargo bike and share poems from a specially commissioned anthology featuring voices from across the Commonwealth.

The anthology will be launched at an event on 1 August at Watershed at the Briggait with Commonwealth Poet Laureate Selina Tusitala Marsh, Scotland’s Makar Peter Mackay, actor Tam Dean Burn, poet RJ Arkhipov and a selection of Scotland’s Young Makars.

The poems explore relationships between rivers, communities and landscapes across the Commonwealth, opening up conversations about belonging, stewardship, nature rights and our responsibilities to the places that sustain us.

The project forms part of the wider Glasgow 2026 Festival – a ten-week celebration of culture, creativity, sport and community running alongside the Commonwealth Games – which is transforming streets, parks, venues and public spaces across the city into places for people to gather, celebrate and discover something unexpected. 

Developed by The Empire Café, the long-running collaboration between architect Jude Barber and writer Louise Welsh, The Watershed Festival builds on the ideas explored in their multi-award-winning podcast Who Owns the Clyde? celebrating rivers and fighting for their rights: asking who has access to the river, who makes decisions about its future and how Glasgow might reclaim and reimagine the Clyde as a place that serves citizens, visitors and ecosystems alike.

Louise Barber and Louise Welsh said: "Quayside Poetry began with a simple question: what kind of relationship do we want Glasgow to have with the Clyde?

"Through Who Owns the Clyde? we've spent years exploring questions of ownership, access and stewardship around the river. What we've discovered is that these aren't just Glasgow questions. Communities across the Commonwealth are grappling with many of the same challenges and possibilities.

"The poems commissioned for this project speak about rivers as living, breathing ecologies that connect landscapes, communities and generations. They explore everything from pollution and privatisation to belonging, memory and hope.

"We wanted to take that work out of galleries and venues and bring it directly onto the riverbank. By sharing poetry from a cargo bike along the Clyde, we're creating moments that people can simply stumble across as they move through the city during Glasgow 2026 Festival.

Chris Ansell, Director of Live Programmes and Engagement, Glasgow 2026 said: "Glasgow 2026 Festival is about creating opportunities for people to come together, discover something unexpected and experience the city in new ways.

"By sharing voices from across the Commonwealth on the banks of the Clyde, Watershed connects Glasgow to wider conversations about rivers, communities and the environment, while creating moments of reflection and imagination.

"It's a wonderful example of how culture can spark curiosity, bring people together and encourage us to think differently about the places we share."

You can find out where and when to find the poetry-pop ups along the River Clyde by clicking here.