Scots in Malaŵi

I recognised my student Rose
by the Bank of Scotland t-shirt she chose
to wear to class before her uniform arrived.

I found my way around the map
by following traces of a certain chap
called Livingstone as we have presumed.

From Mzuzu to Malindi
the place is full of Scots of inde-
pendent spirit and enquiring mind.

Even Banda was a Scot
by formation as near as not.

But the shops sell Coca Cola and never Irn Bru.




previously published in my pamphlet Bougainvillea Dancing

for more about the connections between Scotland and Malawi, visit the Scotland Malawi Partnership website.

Hyperlinking my poetry for Read Write Poem. The best idea is to read the poem all the way through and then follow the links to find out more. I'm not sure how much creative, rather than informative value there is in adding hyperlinks to poetry, but i think its worth looking into. What do you think?

St Cuthbert's Churchyard, Edinburgh

More photos from the same walk on Crafty Green Poet here.

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

This is a wonderful book, extremely clever in both concept and execution! It is set in a fictional island whose residents are gradually deprived of the use of certainl letters of the alphabet. The story is told through letters, written by residents of the island, which naturally don't contain the banned letters. The language therefore becomes more and more restricted. The whole narrative is a reflection on the insidiousness of censorship and the way that censorship and wider political repression affect people's lives, how people react and how they adapt to censorship. A vital and entertaining read for our times.

Skin Deep - an update

I got my contributor's copy of Skin Deep yesterday and it's beautiful! I mean even if you never read the poems in this book, its a work of art to treasure. Even better, the poems are excellent too!

You can buy a copy here!

Many thanks to Claire, for producing such a gorgeous book and for including one of my poems in it!

gallery quiet -
shattered by loud opinions
of old ladies.

My Life as a Mafia Widow

It's something about the Italian shape of your nose
something that lurks in the shadows in oddly compelling Mafia films
the unexpected gia visto of Sciasca's sentences
that I absorb untaught in the original

old nightmares of being chased down cobbled streets to my death
start to make some kind of sense

and my face on my passport photo
looks like some Sicilian widow
as I was when Cosa Nostra stole you away
in our last life

and still in this one
you never speak to me
while your girl
practices mourning,

Mafia style

gia visto - deja vu

Cosa Nostra - Mafia

Re-imagining my life for Read Write Poem

Skin Deep - poetry about tattoos

Skin Deep, the anthology of poetry about tattoos, edited by Claire Askew, is now available to pre-order here. It will be available in tattoo shops and other outlets in Edinburgh from the beginning of March. £4 only!

Yes, I do feature in it.....

picking at the scabs
of unwanted memory -
insistent questions

This poem has been removed



Sleepless also over at Crafty Green Poet

New Poems, Chiefly in the Scots

This evening I was at the Scottish Poetry Library for the launch of this anthology of commissioned poetry in Scots along with its companion selection of the poetry of Robert Burns Best Laid Schemes. There were readings of Burns' work, including a long poem of his about America, nicely timed for today. There were also readings from some of the poets featured in New Poems, the highlight of which for me was David Kinloch reading from his poem about Eugene Montale (the great Italian poet) addressing a cuttlefish in Scots. Kinloch has a wonderfully observant humour running through his poetry and this was a very entertaining poem.

Best Laid Schemes, edited by Robert Crawford and Christopher MacLachlan
New Poems, Chiefly in Scots, edited by Robert Crawford
both published by Polygon.