An Online Reading with Sukhema

To continue our Letting Go programme, we're delighted to invite you to an online reading by Glasgow-based poet, publisher and facilitator Sukhema Butler on Tuesday 3rd February, from 7.00-8.30pm.

Sukhema as Larry Butler was born in the USA , and has been living in Glasgow since 1981.

Convenor for Lapidus Scotland, he teaches tai-chi and leads expressive writing groups in healthcare settings. His publications include Butterfly Bones (Two Ravens), and Han Shan Everywhere (Survivors’ Press). Through PlaySpace Publications he edits and publishes anthologies and pamphlets, including Autumn Voices, Bundles of Bog Cotton, and Living Our Dying.

After practising and studying meditation and Buddhism for over 50 years, he was ordained as ‘Sukhema’ which means ‘he who is (trying to be!) very peaceful and at ease’. He also leads retreats in Dhanakosa and facilitates rituals and events based on The Work That Reconnects. He enjoys being a grandpa to three children, and knitting (plain & purl).

Tickets are priced on a pay-what-you-can basis, from £0 to £10. All income raised goes toward the development of the project.

Sukhema is the second of our Online Writers-in-Residence. As well as giving this reading, Sukhema will write for the Autumn Voices website, and offer a series of three online writing workshops. For more details of these, see the Letting Go page on our website.

LETTING GO is a programme of creative writing activities for older people, developed and delivered by Autumn Voices, and supported by the Creative Scotland Open Fund for Organisations.

The theme of Letting Go is taken from the book Autumn Voices by Robin Lloyd-Jones.

Much of our younger lives is about acquiring – acquiring partners, children, a good job, a house, material things. There comes a period in our lives when the scales tip and much of life becomes about letting go – downsizing, coming to terms with loss, letting go of what you can't change and of unrealistic hopes and plans; and letting go of grudges and hatreds because it's now or never. In letting go we help those old doors to close and the new ones to open.

As Robin outlines, while ageing involves loss, it also brings opportunities to let go of what we don't need, whether that's material belongings or emotional baggage, and to discover what in life is truly essential.

Activities are facilitated by four Online Writers-in-Residence (OWRs). Working consecutively, each OWR will present four online sessions – a reading or presentation for an audience of up to 100, and three writing workshops, for a cohort of up to twelve. We will publish an anthology featuring a new piece of writing commissioned from each OWR, and texts submitted by workshop participants. The anthology will be published online and in print, as a free newspaper. The project concludes in June 2026 with a public, hybrid Round Table event in Stirling, with the four OWRs and other speakers reflecting on the project, and considering more broadly the issue of older people's creativity.

Image credits:
'The Jump' by Louise Humphrey
'Sukhema Butler at Carbeth' by Kim Stafford