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. 

We travel the world in this new collection of poems from Jenifer Harley. Surging from the global to the local, from Samoa and Sydney to a Scottish seaside bothy, her keen-eyed observation focuses us afresh on human civilisation’s grandeur, originality and beauty. But she’s also playfully aware of the everyday experience of tiny things that irk like the ouch of wearing flip-flops on a steep dirt track.

These poems are always alert to language – or, rather, languages – e.g. ‘la ragazza sooks spaghetti’ (a line from ‘Bar Gambrinus, Pisa’), capturing the vibrancy of a location’s cheerful, chaotic cacophony and colours.

A vividly perceptive collection, commemorative and celebratory, documenting life’s rough and smooth. A collection with real heart.

'Siren Calling' is a collection which explores embodied landscapes, both external and internal. Whether Linda Jackson is evoking 'red-gold' Uluru as it 'pulses with colour', the 'chalice of iced sunlight' which a glass transforms to, or to the potter's kiln which recalls and replaces the flames of a war-torn country, all of them are alive with the sense of what it is to be human.

The past, as Neil Young declares, may be ‘no fit place to inhabit’ (too much poverty, too much war and its aftermath), but it is fertile ground for poetry for this son of Belfast. On show is a dry-eyed (and sometimes dewy-eyed) nostalgia for the (far from) ordinary lives that history overlooks, including a mantlepiece of family photographs and a mother’s collection of ‘buttons, badges, stubs/of dance-hall tickets’ stashed in a ‘childhood biscuit tin.’ Neil Young realises that we are all keepers of myths and in its way, this collection is a book of heroes – the famous and the (almost) forgotten who show us ‘what history looks like when it’s the last place to look’. By questioning the past there’s a chance we’ll forge a future worth the effort of making.

(Chris Powci)

A Kist of Treasure: John Maclean is surely that. Martin Goldie brings to life in verse one of Scotland’s greatest ‘Man o the People’. Here, a hundred years after Maclean’s death, Goldie’s reverence for a true hero comes across in his own fine penmanship.

There are just not enough books on Maclean and there are definitely far too few poems and songs about the man – Goldie has gone some way to putting this right.

(Dr. Joe Murray)

Reaching the Light is a book for lovers of wonderfully crafted poetry. Eveline Pye’s enlightening, painful recollections of her childhood and her relationship with an abusive mother are told with dazzling skill. As a child, she despairs, no one is trying to save me. Later comes the realisation that her own loving part is immured in stone. We are also told that daughters…with courage and time to heal…can break free. This book is therapeutic and cathartic – it may ease pain and spread understanding, especially amongst those who have suffered parental abuse.

Reaching the Light is a survivor’s collection and should be read as widely as possible.

(Johnny Woods, retired Consultant Psychiatrist, Glasgow)

Glasgow’s fame as a city of music is legendary: the musicians that it has birthed, the venues: King Tuts, Howlin Wolf and the Barrowlands and The Maryland and Burns Howff to name a few.

Glasgow audiences are loved and commented on by performers the world over.

There are street musicians, songs of murmuration: starlings and blackbirds, rehearsals and studios and those moments of sheer bliss listening to, or performing, that life-changing song.

Our club scene, our classical moments – it never ends in this Glasgow: City of Music.

Finally, the anthology of poetry and short memoirs.

Edited by Linda Jackson

What would you give of your worst in your Will and Testament to an individual or individuals who deserve it?

Satire inspired the great Irish satirist, Kevin Higgins.

'I Bequeath' is a collection of poetry inspired by the workshops, (online and in person), the support and guidance of the late poet, Kevin Higgins who died one year ago this month in January 2023.

This collection is both poignant and humorous and includes poetry by Morag Anderson, Hugh McMillan, Judith Taylor and many others.

One you can share in company, well some company.

Enjoy.

Diana Devlin has the ability to let your mind wander randomly here and there through her words, to dump your preconceptions in a ditch and then hold your hand as you turn a corner into another poem of originality and force. This collection by its very title is a full frontal embrace of crafted words. Let her take your hand - you won’t regret it.

(Jim MacKintosh, poet)

'What a welcome second collection from Lesley Benzie. Fessen is a total delight. She melds her native N-east Scots with English in writing which is a keen observation of both the outside world and a close scrutiny of human behaviour and relationship.  Her language is muscular, strong, yet tender.

She is interested in everything we know of life...walking on the high cliffs of Catterline remembering Joan Eardley, guillemots...perched on tiny ledges facin intae the scarp/like they hiv come tae worship/at the wailin waa...burnt umber plumage/like oiled velvet...and that final homage... a wee prayer for the coastline/that pressed itsel intae Joan's hairt.' 

(Sheila Templeton, Poet)

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)

Dr Linda Jackson set up a Writing Retreat in Barga, Tuscany and the poetic outcomes have now been placed in this small book.

Barga: the town, the families and the artistic community.

It is all in here.

In this superb collection, a pair of Jackdaws build a nest and hatch their young in a ‘gash in one of the window panels’. Fulton unfolds events with deadpan humour, some visceral descriptions, and an unerring eye for concrete detail in this series of short lyrics. He expertly weaves in detail from everyday life, and uncanny observations from the streets of Paisley (‘a sparkly unicorn in a high window’) and beyond (‘a flattened dragonfly/in the centre of a road’) and never once assumes the affection that emerges for ‘Jack and Jill’ is reciprocated. (‘they don’t give a toss/if I’m here or not’). Indeed, Jack’s voice is not one to be messed with. These poems explore the relationship between humankind and nature in an urban environment with wit, craft, profundity, and warmth in an immensely satisfying and positive evocation of nature and new life.

(Andy Breckenridge, poet)

Jim Ferguson has ten books of poetry already under his belt and this latest collection is a most welcome addition to his vast repertoire. A particular favourite is Domestic Day, a slow meandering through house-hold chores that Ferguson turns into pleasures, whilst the making of soup becomes a meditation in nourishment, soup wae wine, a Vikings shield against the snowfall.

Songs for Lara is more than just a love story, it’s a story of love found between the lines, or in the secret places where we sometimes fear to venture. 

 (Donna Campbell, poet)