What if the Clyde could speak? New Glasgow 2026 Festival Project Uses Poetry to Imagine a Different Future for the River

Free Poetry Pop-Ups bring Commonwealth voices to the riverbank as part of Watershed Festival 2026 at the Briggait, developed as part of Who owns the Clyde from The Empire Cafe.

This summer, ‘Who owns the Clyde’ from The Empire Cafe as part of Glasgow 2026 Festival is inviting people to look at the River Clyde with fresh eyes, as part of Glasgow 2026 Festival.

Across two weekends during the Commonwealth Games and Merchant City Festival, Poetry Pop-Ups will bring poetry, conversation and creativity directly to the water's edge, encouraging residents and visitors to spend time with the river and imagine new possibilities for its future.

Part of Watershed Festival 2026, the free Poetry Pop-Up events take place at a series of locations – Squiggly Bridge, La Passionata, Clutha Corner, The Briggait and Glasgow Green - along Glasgow's city-centre waterfront from 24-26 July and 31 July-2 August. 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.  

Like Turner Prize winner Jasleen Kaur's major Clyde-side public artwork Superstructure - which The Empire Café collaborated on - it places a trail of sculptural weather-vanes along the river throughout the summer, Watershed encourages audiences to engage with the Clyde as a living force that continues to shape the city's identity, communities and future.  

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.

"Poetry has a unique ability to make complex ideas feel human. We hope these encounters encourage people to think about the river differently - not just as part of Glasgow's history, but as something living that deserves our attention, our imagination and our care."

From public access and biodiversity to culture, recreation and everyday enjoyment, The Watershed Festival asks what more the Clyde might become if people were empowered to participate in shaping its future. Through poetry, discussion and shared experience, it offers moments of connection between local stories and wider Commonwealth perspectives.

With events taking place alongside Merchant City Festival and the Commonwealth Games, Poetry Pop-Ups exemplify Glasgow 2026 Festival's ambition to place people, creativity and participation at the heart of the city's summer celebrations, creating experiences that will stay with people long after the Games have ended.

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."
Bailie Annette Christie, Chair of Glasgow Life and City Convener for Culture, Sport and International Relations, said: "Glasgow Life is proud to support Watershed and its Poetry Pop-ups through the Glasgow 2026 Festival Fund and to help bring projects like this to audiences across the city.

"One of the strengths of the Glasgow 2026 Festival is the way it brings together artists, communities and organisations to create new ways of engaging with Glasgow's stories, places and people. Watershed does that beautifully, inviting us to see the Clyde not simply as a backdrop to the city, but as a living part of its identity and future.

"Alongside projects such as Jasleen Kaur's Superstructure, it encourages people to reflect on the river's significance. And through poetry, public participation and creativity, it opens up important conversations about stewardship, access and our relationship with the natural environment in a way that is engaging and open to all."