Native River

In this collection, Macfarlane ‘swims through galaxies’. These clear-eyed poems honour the sacredness of everyday; showing us how the smallest moment or observation (a salmon leap, a sparrow, newborn mouse, a boy in red trainers) might be framed for greatness. With intricacy of form and voice, these poems are deft negotiations between nature and human-made; between species; between past and present; Scots and English (and – with heart-rending effect – both, in ‘Going back’); the body and the elements. Macfarlane offers us meeting points of river, grassland, city, garden, hill and field – where connection and recovery are possible, alongside acknowledgements of difficulty and loss.

(Rebecca Sharp, writer)