Jane's Writing Shed.

'Where you start from' new poetry pamphlet launch. Mariscat Press. Friday 8 May, Blackwell's Bookshop, South Bridge, Edinburgh. 6 - 8 pm. My friend, the poet Lindy Barbour is launching her first poetry pamphlet, published by Mariscat Press at Blackwell's Bookshop, South Bridge, Edinburgh from 6-8 pm. This is a joint launch with another poet, Eveline Pye. Tickets are free from Blackwell's shop or by phoning 0131 622 8218 or events.edinburgh@blackwells.co.uk or on Eventbrite. Get along if you can, it will be a great evening!

'Roads to Yair' Some Border poems by Bridget Khursheed. Twinlaw Publishing. 2015. £6.99. The preface tells the reader that a 'yair' is an old Scots word for a fish trap and a quiet spot in Tweeddale where King Malcolm allowed the monks of Kelso to create a pool in which to fish. This feels like a good premise for a first collection as the poet has corralled many enjoyable poems into her yair. I've had the pleasure of hearing Bridget read some of her poems. She's a wonderful raconteur and in this collection she offers the reader a strong sense of place, history, people and the natural world of the Borders. She loves getting her poetical teeth around phrases like " the clatter of coal in clarty carts" (The Clovenfords vineries), "garbage of flesh, crumpled clothes and crows" (Rough Wooing). In these poems Bridget generously offers her knowledge and affection for Border haunts and people with humour and sharp observations. Her poems revea...

This poem is a celebration of frogs. The wild life pond is currently jam-packed with frogs and frog spawn. I think it's almost impossible not to smile while frog spotting. Spawning on the Allotment Come Spring and frogs go frolicking in pond weed soup among marigolds, loosestrife, water crowfoot. Plopping, slip-slopping about, singing to each other from a hundred boggy throats and soon from a hundred green and yellow bodies, come a million jellied eggs. Then in the dregs of summer, a yellow frog, a wrinkle of light, disturbed by all the digging, hops from the dark edge of the plot and in the time it takes to blink, disappears.

This poem was inspired by the painting of Lady Margaret Sackville by Henry Lintott (1916) in The Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh and the poems and collages by Andre Breton in The Dean Gallery, Edinburgh. Lady Margaret Sackville lived in Edinburgh for many years and wrote vehemently against the First World War. Andre Breton, living in Paris, wrote in the Manifesto for Surrealism how society was in thrall to the 'reign of logic'. He also strongly opposed the War. Lady Margaret Sackville & Andre Breton* never met                   wrote against war in Manifesto                   & Pageant The Surrealist                   The Children’s Writer philosophical      ...

The flibbertigibbet of a house ‘I’ll be safe when I’m enclosed’ Sir Walter Scott’* (Sir Walter Scott’s motto carved into the gateway at Abbotsford.) Within the bounds of his rambling residence he assembled books in thousands, countless treasures, his talismans, many intimate, some fake: Byron’s urn full of Greek bones, a lead musket ball from Culloden, Rob Roy’s skean-dhu, a black and gilt harp by Sebastian Erard, a skull cast from Robert the Bruce, two Tollbooth keys, a blunderbuss and Raeburn’s portrait with dogs, Camp and Percy. Against invasion he bought up land, transformed his house and furiously wrote while drawing all about him. And though it’s all still there he barely lived two decades at his beloved Abbotsford. The Writing Cabinet ‘Afflavit Deus et dissipantur’ ‘God blew and they were scattered’ (Inscribed on a silver plate on Sir Walter Scott’s writing cabinet) This is how it might have been. Sixty-three galleons ...

I was reading one of the Guardian's long essays recently written by Patrick Barkham. This was a riveting piece about the effect of grouse shooting on raptors particularly the fate of goshawks in Bowland. Then I bought David Harsent's collection Fire Songs published by Faber & Faber which has recently won the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. Re-reading one of the poems in this collection 'Bowland Beth' I suddenly realised that the subject was one of the same goshawks mentioned in Patrick Barkham's article. Where the Guardian essay was a wonderful example of contemporary nature writing, well researched and shocking, David Harsent's poem concentrates on the beauty of the goshawk to create an elegy for a bird almost driven to extinction. 'That she made shapes in the air  That she saw the world as pattern and light  moorland to bare mountain drawn by        instinct' Then 'That the gunshot was another sound amid      birdcall  a...

Here's a whimsical story for the year's end. It explains why methane gas has been found on Mars recently and the origins of a popular nursery rhyme.... Sparkle Derek was okay for a robot.  Shortly after I flopped out of a tube in the big pod on Mars,  he gave me a tag name, Sparkle.   He didn't know that my mother had already named me Farming  Today  after her favourite radio programme.  She'd lived somewhere called Earth and used to tell me about  things  called meadows.   I don’t know what happened to her after that. Derek and I used to have late night conversations.  He said I was a good listener. One night after he had shambled back to his sleeping pod,  I had a dream which mixed up all my mother’s stories  and Derek’s  odd tales.  The next morning I came to a decision  as the milking robots  sucked at our udders.  When Derek appeared to re-fill  the food hoppers,...