In The Poetry

When I started out as a writer when I was about fifteen I wanted to be a nature poet – and everything else just got in the way – issues of identity and gender and politics and all that. And now at the grand old age of forty I’m beginning to think hard again about [...]

‘Mr and Mrs Scotland Are Dead’ concerns things I found on a local dump – where I shouldn’t have been because one’s not allowed to play on the dump but I’m a grown-up woman and I can go there if I want. I found a lot of personal effects and of course I couldn’t resist [...]

Before my boy was born – I didn’t know it was a boy obviously – but before this child was born I was frightened that I might not like this child who was going to come and live with us. I think this is a thing a lot of expectant mothers fear but you’re not [...]

‘Mr and Mrs Scotland Are Dead’ concerns things I found on a local dump – where I shouldn’t have been because one’s not allowed to play on the dump but I’m a grown-up woman and I can go there if I want. I found a lot of personal effects and of course I couldn’t resist [...]

‘Mr and Mrs Scotland Are Dead’ concerns things I found on a local dump – where I shouldn’t have been because one’s not allowed to play on the dump but I’m a grown-up woman and I can go there if I want. I found a lot of personal effects and of course I couldn’t resist [...]

One day walking in Argyll with my husband we encountered a wishing tree which surprised us a great deal because I didn’t know there were any in Scotland. I mean a tree people have bashed coins into for a wish or a desire – I knew they existed in Ireland but had never seen one [...]

Before my boy was born – I didn’t know it was a boy obviously – but before this child was born I was frightened that I might not like this child who was going to come and live with us. I think this is a thing a lot of expectant mothers fear but you’re not [...]

When I started out as a writer when I was about fifteen I wanted to be a nature poet – and everything else just got in the way – issues of identity and gender and politics and all that. And now at the grand old age of forty I’m beginning to think hard again about [...]

This is about simply being very tired. It’s called ‘Lochan’.

Lochan

(For Jean Johnstone)

When all this is over I mean
to travel north, by the high

drove roads and cart tracks
probably in June,

with the gentle dog-roses
flourishing beside me. I mean

to find among the thousands
scattered in that land

a certain quiet lochan,
where water lilies rise

like small fat moons,
and tied among the [...]