New Writing Scotland 35 'She Said He Said I Said'

I was delighted to be one of the writers invited to read at the launch of 'New Writing Scotland' 35, She Said He Said I Said held at Blackwell's Bookshop in Edinburgh last night. Unfortunately Viccy Adams wasn't able to attend but it was great to meet Bryan Johnstone, Rose McDonagh, Heather Parry and Harry Smart as well as one of the editors Susie Maguire and Duncan Jones from the Association of Scottish Literary Studies. I read my poem Washerwomen on Calton Hill inspired by Thomas Begbie's wonderful photograph taken in 1887. The poem is written from the perspective of one of the washerwomen and how her feelings about the photographer might have been changed by one or two imagined incidents.

Washerwomen on Calton Hill

Scunnered. Such a good day
for drying clothes up on the hill, away
from all the smoky lums and up he comes,
wants us to pose on the slopes.
The cheek of him, we were all in position,
standing, kneeling and his box on legs all set up,
when he asked us to wait while he runs down to the gorse
to relieve himself!
Eventually he flitted with all his stuff.
Then one day when I was rushing down Leith Street,
I noticed a picture in the studio window.
I was taken aback by my dark shawl blurred by the breeze,
all the clothes laid on the grass, our white bonnets,
              long dark tresses,
the bairns' tresses and how that Thomas Begbie had
              made us look
like ourselves but more elegant and had squeezed us all
out of his box on to one small, square of paper.

Jane Aldous 2016.