Child in the Growing Old

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)

Like nesting dolls indeed, these are poems of tender love and longing which open out to encompass a century or more of family history. They are poems of emigration and alienation, of love and loss, brought alive by the detail in Kathryn Metcalfe’s writing. I particularly liked the longing evoked in ‘Back Court’ where the patch of blue sky grows smaller every day, even ‘weeds would be welcome here’ and the young woman’s sigh is a small brown bird reaching for freedom. In Seanchaidh/Storyteller, the title character comes to life as ‘Ancient campfires burned / in his eyes as he worked / the fabric of hand me down / stories’.

The poems come to us as snapshots, scattered and seemingly random, in much the same way that family history is remembered and shared.

(Jennie Turnbull, Writer)