Jane's Writing Shed.

'Where you start from' by Lindy Barbour. Published by Mariscat Press 2015. £6.00. The title of Lindy Barbour's first poetry pamphlet reveals the author's skill in finding just the right word or phrase and thereby implying layers of meaning in her poems. 'Where you start from' not 'I', not 'we' but 'you' which could be addressed to her brothers, to whom the collection is dedicated, her parents, her readers and/or herself. These poems exquisitely chart her early years growing up in North East Fife. The pamphlet opens with the first poem, 'First, the Garden, November 1956', 'We opened the back gate in the high wall and, entering from William Street, found you waiting,' This poem is a tender evocation of a memory of her childhood garden and as with other poems in the pamphlet, it sharply highlights the differences between adult concerns, 'That's not laurel, it's a camellia' and those of a child, ...

I wrote this poem last year after a delightful Suffolk holiday. Imagine watching a green woodpecker stabbing the grass in the graveyard of a medieval church....... Thinking of stardust by Crowfield Church That call, that shock of feathers, of moss and blood, behind a half-timbered church. A green woodpecker with a snake-like tongue, raked out invertebrates between the gravestones, then flew up, a mocking cry in its wake. The sound caught. What if, I thought, when a bird dies the carcass is carried off by a fox or a stoat, then partly eaten, partly left, rots and desiccates. And on a night when the atmosphere thins and the wind catches the drying skin of dead things, all those atoms are gathered up into shining skeins, particulates of wing and gristle, shifting in the solar winds? That would make dust somehow immortal.

'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 ...