Anita Govan

Anita Govan is a neurodiverse spoken word poet, performer, events producer, and teaching artist based in Edinburgh. She has a long history in the arts, with Anita starting to perform at just twelve years old.

Anita discovered poetry at the age of ten by winning a poetry competition at school. This was an unexpected turn of events at the time, as she struggled at school and couldn’t read or write. Little did Anita know how much poetry can change a life. 

 

As a child, Anita was found to be profoundly dyslexic, and later on in adulthood she was diagnosed with ADHD and informed that she was on the Autistic spectrum. Despite these diagnoses, Anita has achieved a multitude of remarkable things across her creative career.

Anita attended and trained at ballet boarding school for six years from the ages of twelve to eighteen. She not only learned how to dance but also how to produce events, create performances, and how to teach.

Due to a serious car accident, Anita retrained in community drama, building her diverse skill-set further and gaining experience in a variety of community settings including resource centers, community projects, and production companies such as Edinburgh’s Theatre Workshop. She later directed with Birds of Paradise theatre company as she explored and grew her teaching philosophy and practices. 

Anita rediscovered her love of poetry as she studied for her Honours degree at the Open University. She then went on to train with the Goat Island Theatre Company in Chicago, where she learned the importance of establishing practices that enable and sustain creativity. Anita also travelled to Canada with the help of the Scottish Arts Council to attend Keith Johnstone’s Loose Moose Theatre Company International Improvisation School for Storytellers, where she focused on unfreezing the petrified imagination. She has been using poetry ever since, as a tool to empower people to find their voice and build their own creative practices. 

 

As a teaching artist, Anita sees poetry as an exciting and powerful tool for people of all ages and backgrounds. Inspired by her own experience of struggle at school, Anita encourages young people with specific learning difficulties to develop their own creative practice with her participatory, flexible, and inclusive approach to teaching.

 

Anita has been working with local government and communities across Scotland for more than twenty years. She has held workshops and events in partnership with Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Renfrewshire, Stirling, Glasgow, and East Lothian Councils. 

 

Anita is an early pioneer of Scottish Spoken Word and Performance Poetry. She co-founded Scotland’s first performance poetry club and slams BigWord with Jem Rolls in the early 2000s and the Scottish Youth Poetry Slam with ConFAB in 2004, which still runs today. She has extensive experience working with underserved communities and young people delivering workshops and courses for young people looking to get started in writing and performance.

 

She has also worked with organisations such as Scottish Natural Heritage, Princes Trust, Edinburgh, Glasgow, the Scottish National Library, Luminate Scotland, RSNO, Amnesty UK and Words that Burn, and the Wellcome Trust to produce unique poetry commissions.

 

Jane, Anita’s poetry collection was published by Luath Press in 2005. She has also been published in a variety of publications including Interpret Magazine Issue 5, The Scotsman newspaper, The One O’Clock Gun, Poets Against the War by Salt Publishing, and Scottish Book Collector Issue 6.

 

Anita has appeared on TV and radio with her work featured by STV, Sky TV, Sunny Govan Radio, BBC Radio Scotland, and BBC Radio 7. She was also appointed Stirling Makar from 2012 to 2015 and was Poet-in-Residence for UNESCO in 2023 and at ITAC3 in 2016. She produced conference poems for Glasgow University’s Culture Ceilidh, the ITAC3 conference, and was commissioned to produce her poem on swimming for the 2012 Commonwealth Games.

 

She has performed her poetry around the world at festivals including Amnesty International Refugee Festival, Book Week Scotland, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Stirling Festival, Glastonbury, Wickerman Festival, Leith Festival, Wigtown Book Festival, Aye Write Festival, and StAnza. She has also performed at the Nuyorican in New York, USA, London Soho Theatre in London, UK, and Loose Moose Theatre in Calgary, Canada.

 

Anita is listed on the Scottish Book Trust’s Live Literature Scheme as a teaching artist providing facilitation for workshops and courses, and creating live poetry commissions at events, including business conferences, seminars, and community projects.

 

Currently, she produces, curates, and hosts Lost in Leith presents: Spoken Word & Music, a monthly event showcasing creative talent from across Scotland. With this latest collaboration, she has been able to platform and offer paying opportunities to more than 64 artists and creatives from across Scotland.

 

You can get in touch with Anita to work together using the form on her contact page.