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.
£9.00
Glasgow: Historical City. A vibrant anthology of the dear green place.
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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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The three poets in this collection have a lot in common. They’re gritty, tough, their observation is born of personal experience, not all of it pleasant. That is recommendation enough but there are many moments too of pure revelation. Donna Campbell’s pearls brimming with moonlight that are the bi-product of pain, the stark beauty of Lesley Benzie’s poem about a father’s death ‘Fan she an her sester met their faither’s unbent gaze…’ and Linda Jackson picking up ‘petals of words from smart-dressed lovers’. Such simple beauty is not easily achieved. At its best poetry can be both empathetic and transformative. This is it, at its best.
(Hugh McMillan, poet)
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This collection has work by the late Tom Leonard, Finola Scott and Lesley Benzie.
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