The Scottish Poetry Library

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For poetry readers everywhere. Inspirational ideas, classic selections, podcasts, reviews, and much more.

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› About Best Scottish Poems 2008? Read the best Scottish poems of 2008, selected by Rosemary Goring and Alan Taylor.

› Michael Schmidt introduces Gregory O'Brien in the last instalment of our New Zealand Poets.

Jen Hadfield

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The SPL is 25

We celebrate 25 years of bringing people and poems together, with 25 leaves for 25 years.

Edwin Morgan Archive

The Edwin Morgan Archive at the Scottish Poetry Library was launched on 27 April. Visit our Sweet Old Etc blog for photographs and chat from the event.

The Archive is now open and accessible to all.

Hedgehog, Hamnavoe

Flinching in my hands
this soiled and studded but good heart,
which stippling my cupped palms, breathes –

a kidney flinching on a hot griddle,
or very small Hell's Angel, peeled from the verge
of a sweet, slurred morning.

Drunk, I coddle it like a crystal ball,
hellbent the realistic mysteries
should amount to more than guesswork

and fleas.

› Find out more about Jen Hadfield in our Poets A - Z

› Jen is reading here at the SPL on Thursday 2 July at 7.30pm. Read more about this event...

› Jen responded to this poem in our Best Scottish Poems 2008.