Swathed in Scarlet Chiffon
We travel the world in this new collection of poems from Jenifer Harley. Surging from the global to the local, from Samoa and Sydney to a Scottish seaside bothy, her keen-eyed observation focuses us afresh on human civilisation’s grandeur, originality and beauty. But she’s also playfully aware of the everyday experience of tiny things that irk like the ouch of wearing flip-flops on a steep dirt track.
These poems are always alert to language – or, rather, languages – e.g. ‘la ragazza sooks spaghetti’ (a line from ‘Bar Gambrinus, Pisa’), capturing the vibrancy of a location’s cheerful, chaotic cacophony and colours.
A vividly perceptive collection, commemorative and celebratory, documenting life’s rough and smooth. A collection with real heart.
£9.00
Related Books
-
WTF is normal anyway?If you want your poetry as a lulled accompaniment to whatever you happen to be doing - don't read Jo Gilbert. If you like your Doric couthie and couth, paired with a wee sepia photo - don't read Jo Gilbert. But if you need poetry that makes you 'Get aff that fuckin horse. Now!' , and opens your 'kohl clarted eyes' to garr ye greet and laugh aloud...then read Jo Gilbert. And what a titular poem. Three lines, punching hard with every word. What a debut.
(Beth McDonough, writer)
£10.00£10.00Add to basket
-
Unshackled
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)
£9.00£9.00Add to basket
-
Glasgow: Justice / Just Is
5 new poems by the acclaimed poet, Graham Fulton, work by Charlie Gracie, Magi Gibson, Jim Ferguson and many others. A truly engaging anthology.
£10.00£10.00Add to basket
-
Fessen
'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)
£10.00£10.00Add to basket
