Tales of a Cosmic Crofter
This is an entrancing read. The story, told in a sequence of poems, of a diligent but burnt-out island crofter who buys a fourth-hand workaday tractor and discovers that, in his hands, it can convert to a space capsule. And he wastes no time in taking off on nightly joyrides of galactic exploration, ‘each whirl a defiance of his ancestry’.
Murray’s gift for storytelling is at full power here, the narrative a roller coaster of loops and bends and inversions; images so vivid they give you a jolt, like the one of the crofter ‘stealing red threads from a sunset’, for a weaver neighbour, ‘to lighten up the overwhelming gloom/of dark twill stretched before him.’
(Maggie Rabatski)
£10.00
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Jackdaws
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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.
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Remembering Myself
I want to hold Donna's words in my hands, swallow them, say them out loud. They are brutal and tender, passionate and nostalgic. They get you from the page right in the guts.
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