Waterlight: Selected Poems
Jamie, lauded as "the leading Scottish poet of her generation" by theTimesof London, hasn't previously been published on this side of the pond. She is a global Scot, fully at home in the local landscape she precisely observed and conversant with the larger world, as a charming list poem in Scots attests: "a field o whaups, organic neeps, / a poke o Brattisani's chips, / clootie well, computer bits, / an elder o the wee free Kirk." She writes of travels to Budapest and Canada, too, and models poems on Holderlin and comments on British politics. But no matter how familiarly she deploys the language of sophisticated postmodernism, she is rooted in the specifics of Scotland, able to "find among the thousands / scattered in that land / a certain quiet lochan / where waters lilies rise." A poet of many happy qualities, she is most impressive when closest to home and family life close to nature: "hoisting the wash / a rare flight of swans, / hills still courting snow."Patricia MonaghanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved