Poetry News – Scotland, April 2016

Jackie Kay named new Scots Makar

Spring has sprung, and, in terms of news, it’s pretty obvious what the focus for April will be: Scotland’s new and third Makar, Jackie Kay, has landed, and the Twitterverse has gone crazy with excitement and congratulatory shout-outs. What's lovely is that so many people evidently wanted this to be the end result.

Videos and photos show Kay, with her irrepressible beam, being greeted at the Scottish Poetry Library by an equally delighted First Minister. Nicola Sturgeon wrote a glowing introductory piece for The Guardian on the qualities she would bring to the role – most noticeably her honesty and poignancy in dealing with difficult, often personal subjects, and her innately Scottish sense of humour – which made her "the perfect choice."

While there’s no denying that all of the favourites for Makar (including the likes of Tom Leonard, Douglas Dunn, Kathleen Jamie and Don Paterson) could have made something amazing of the job, I have to agree with Sturgeon. Kay’s already received an MBE for her services to literature, is a great all-rounder, and whatever your personal take on her style, Kay’s comments on becoming poetry's ambassador leave no doubt as to her agenda or suitability for the role.

She is definitely a people’s writer who wants to get out and get involved, and it's clear she will thrive on finding new ways to make poetry a tool for better communication and social interaction. As an artist who has had to fight hard against being ‘boxed’ (lesbian, black, woman, adopted etc.) she also has lots to teach younger writers about dealing with identity struggles, and is living proof that a strong identity is something you forge, not something you inherit or take for granted – a very important quality in the current socio-political climate.

Literary events in Scotland this month

In other news, as ever there’s a heap of things to get involved with or go and listen to this month. Highlights include Connie Voisine and Alan Gillis giving a joint reading on 7 April at The Scottish Poetry Library, and explorer poets Chrys Salt and Joanna Lilley leading a poetic journey in Edinburgh University's screening room on 19 April in The Yukon: The Land that Night Forgot.

If you fancy a great night of spoken word, multiple slam champion and global performer Ash Dickinson is launching his new book Strange Keys at the Bongo Club in Edinburgh on the evening of 16 April. He’s been dubbed ‘surrealist’, ‘clever’ and ‘funny’ – not an easy mix to pull off – and his topic range is equally offbeat.

Faber New Poets

On to print – it's been a heavy few days of reading, and top of the list were four gorgeously colourful, slim-line pamphlets from this year's Faber New Poets. Put together they look almost edible, and content-wise are the literary equivalent of a several-mini-course dinner; all the styles complement each other, but contrast sufficiently, meaning that going straight from one to another (always a hazard of the job) doesn’t make you feel overfed or bored.

While they are interesting to look at together, ironically (and probably riskily) one of the most interesting angles is when you compare and contrast same-gender pairings. Sam Buchan-Watts has what I call a ‘camera-pan’ voice, which methodically and sensitively explores a variety of objects, thought trains and scenes, often through the medium of prose poetry – one for lovers of the stream-of-consciousness. I particularly enjoyed Car Game Logic, on the surreal paradox of sitting still on long journeys and how roads are essentially a no-man’s land. On the other hand, awkward small talkers and fans of e e cummings might be more inclined to try Crispin Best (plausible as the former’s darker love child with Spike Milligan), whose kaleidoscopic blurtings contain a myriad of ‘wish I’d said it first' one-liners, my favourites being ‘you have no idea/ of the distances I would travel/ just to disappoint you’ and ‘I’m an optimist/ that’s what I like about you’.

Elaine Beckett and Rachel Curzon are both very moving to read for their acute depiction of complex scenarios and topics, but it is their tones which separate them. Beckett is bluffly warm and conversational, whether speaking purely on her own account or mingling what others say with her take on them, and her imagery is bold and very rich, incorporating the everyday into the ethereal – pink tulips wrapped in snow-flecked cellophane is one example.

Eco-based poems Melting and Killer Whale stayed with me, as did my empathy with Norfolk Winter ’72 (‘I’d said fuck a couple of times too many…/ when everyone else was saying bloody.’) Curzon’s is a quieter voice, laying out ideas like information in an academic journal, but this surface coolness only serves to highlight and intensify the emotive magma boiling beneath the crust: ‘I go over the top because I like to give./ People may find this extravagant/ and alarming.’ Hydra pierces deep, and anyone who is a parent or uncomfortable in hospitals will find a sympathetic voice in Ultrasound – the unvoiced, would-be chatty ramblings of a terrified new mother under the blandness of medic-speak.