Barga: Scottish Poets on Retreat

'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 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)