Description
Book SynopsisA woman sunbathing on a demolition site in Bridgeton. Two women in a punch up in Glasgow’s West End. A young mother breast-feeding in an art gallery. A working man stepping off a tenement roof on a snowy morning. City streets. Country lanes. A letter to Sappho. A ticking off for Nietszche. Not to mention Hugh MacDiarmid’s dirty socks. Or that poem with the intriguing title, 'V****A'.
Trade ReviewIt catches all the qualities of Gibson’s best writing. Metaphorically juxtaposing the skeletons in her cupboard with the ghosts in her attic Gibson is a joy to read. - HAYDEN MURPHY, THE NATIONAL
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Introduction
Author’s Preface
V****A
African Slave Girl in Glasgow
Woman Sunbathing in Bridgeton
Swansong
The Women’s Rural Talk
Cleaning Woman
Miners’ Daughters
Dear Sappho
Mother and Child
Timepiece
Under the silken sky
Hilda Goldwag’s Mirth
That Night…
Visiting Arran with my mother
My Mother’s Funeral
Metamorphic
My Father, Dreaming
Golden Daffodils
Hospice Rules
Recovery Room
Reflections on the River Loing
Early Morning Train to Inverness
The art of fishing
Intruder
Danse Macabre
creative writing
Onceuponadream
An Education
Why I do not take your advice
Song of the Anglerfish
Strange Fish
‘You all die at fifteen,’ said Diderot
Peckin Order
The Boy with the Gun
City Surprise
West End, Friday Night
Barflower
Gift
Lipstick
Liberation of Belsen
loose woman song
My Neighbour
‘Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius’ Nietzsche
the poem he wrote last night
Och Scotland!
Who will mourn the black crows?
Beast
I would like to make this poem
Washing Hugh MacDiarmid’s Socks
Off Balance
