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› Search INSPIRE, the SPL online catalogue

› Lost for words? Track down that lost quotation or help others in their search

Have you heard?

› Thursday 9 October is National Poetry Day

› Vote for your favourite Edwin Morgan poem

Join the online discussion with Ryan Van Winkle in the SPL's Reading Room

Did you know?

› Introducing New Zealand Poets

Competitions for poets

Poetry and creative writing competitions for children and young people

› Dates for your diary in SPL Events

Reading room - Poetry talk, ideas, reviews, communinity...

Best Scottish Poems 2007

Poet of the month
Kathleen Jamie

Kathleen Jamie



Events diary

Thursday 9 October was National Poetry Day

This year's theme is Work.

National Poetry Day - Work

Read more about National Poetry Day, find events near you, try our teaching ideas, send an NPD e-card…

Get with the SPL programme...

Our Autumn/Winter programme, stuffed with delights, has been announced!

But please check venue changes - we have to move a few events in November and December...

› More SPL Events


News

Brian Turner is introduced by James Robertson in the next instalment of our New Zealand Poets Project...

Date for your diaires
and a virtual T S Eliot Prize shortlist announced...

Glamourie

When I found I'd lost you –
not beside me, nor ahead,
nor right nor left not
your green jacket moving

between the trees anywhere,
I waited a long while
before wandering on: no wren
jinked in the undergrowth,

not a twig snapped.
It was hardly the Wildwood,
just some auld fairmer's
shelter belt, but red haws

reached out to me,
and between fallen leaves
pretty white flowers bloomed
late into their year. I tried

calling out, or think
I did, but your name
shrivelled on my tongue,
so instead I strolled on

through the wood's good
offices, and duly fell
to wondering if I hadn't
simply made it all up: you,

I mean, everything,
my entire life....either way,
nothing now could touch me
bar my hosts, who appeared

as diffuse golden light,
as tiny spiders
examining my hair....
what gratitude I felt then -

I might be gone for ages,
maybe seven years!
-and such sudden joie de vivre
that when a ditch gaped

right there instantly in front of me
I jumped it, blithe as a girl -
ach, I jumped clear over it,
without even pausing to think.

Kathleen Jamie © 2008


Kathleen Jamie will be appearing at the SPL in the second of our Close Encounters series. Read more about this event and about Kathleen Jamie...