All About the Surface
There can be no doubt that Karen Macfarlane is a special talent. In All About the Surface, her closely observed, resonant poems convey the richness of the moments she explores. Whether it is open water swimming, walking a ridge, or running down the hill at Clachtoll, Macfarlane’s impressive command of her craft transports the reader into her world to live those experiences with her, to share their pleasures, to encounter their challenges and to be the wiser for having done so.
(Nigel Kent, poet and reviewer)
£9.00
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Glasgow: Dynamic CityThis collection has work by the late Tom Leonard, Finola Scott and Lesley Benzie.
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The Siren Awakens
Linda Jackson’s ‘The Siren Awakes’ is a haunting, heartbreaking and often hilarious dissection of the author’s own childhood and early adulthood; a real world of monster masks, dark closes, dazzling sunlight, love, fear, and, particularly, music. Gentle innocence and sudden cruel violence exist side by side. (Graham Fulton, Poet)
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Jackdaws
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)
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Wanderlust Women: Extra Baggage
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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