Mairi Jack
1953-2022
Mairi was born and raised in Motherwell.
She had a mostly unhappy school life, but attended Langside College after leaving school and gained a place in Glasgow University where she studied English Literature. She had been an avid reader as a child and at University she developed a lifelong love of literature and poetry. One of her lecturers was Edwin Morgan who she admired greatly and was delighted when one of her poems was included in ’The Centenary Collection’ to mark what would have been his 100th birthday.
Mairi had a career in Journalism becoming Women’s Editor at Paisley Daily Express. She went on to work as a teacher supporting children with special needs. Despite a long-term ambition to pursue creative writing, this did not materialise until later in life when she finally joined an inspirational class and workshop run by Dr. Linda Jackson. Much of the work contained in this collection is the result of a surge of creative energy unleashed by these classes and the friends which she made there.
She would have been proud of this book, and it is a wonderful legacy for her family and friends.
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New collection by three women poets, Linda Jackson, Donna Campbell and Lesley Benzie. The women are travelling in Europe this year with the book so have some of the poems translated. 18 new poems in this edition.
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‘More superb poetry from Donna Campbell. Looking for Mae West pulses with life. Her focus ranges from rural hardship to disappointments in love, from sensual exhortations to fierce castigation. This is what we expect from her now, after her wonderful first collection, Mongrel - in every word you see Donna’s smile, hear her confident assertion.
The thing about Donna Campbell is: she a truth-teller, as much about herself as other people. Her poems are always forceful but never brutal – it’s a good trick that, even when she’s telling brutal things.'
(Charlie Gracie, writer)
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Donna Campbell’s first collection may be called ‘Mongrel’ but it is purebred poetry. Her use of words, especially in the Glaswegian vernacular, combine with images to form brutally beautiful poems about aspects of life that less fearless poets might shun. (Lesley Benzie, poet)
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In this fine first collection of lyric poetry, Goldie explores the contrast between the urban experience - the ravages of post-industrial economic decline, and the liberating, rugged landscapes of Scotland, with a range of precise imagery and deft phrasing that examines the complexities of both, and the relationship between them.
We also glimpse tender family vignettes, which are all the more moving for being set against this wider historical backdrop.
Rhythm is deployed with great skill, and underscores time’s relentless onward movement in Conachair (‘Saint Kilda’s screaming cliffs and stacks,’) and in Sligrachan (‘the screams of ghosts from empty yards/through the pulsing heart of that great city’)
A very impressive debut indeed.
(A Breckenridge, poet)
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