SQA National 5 texts Archives

Auntie - by Nadine Aisha Jassat

{ Poem }

My Aunt’s hands are soft and brown
and they smell like cumin and coriander.
She is a gardener in the kitchen.

Èistibh - by Anna Frater

{ Poem }

Feuch an tigeadh guth
tron t-sàmhchair.

In Mrs Tilscher’s Class - by Carol Ann Duffy

{ Poem }

You could travel up the Blue Nile
with your finger, tracing the route
while Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery.
Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswân.

Whilst Leila Sleeps - by Jackie Kay

{ Poem }

I am moving in the dead of night, packing things, turning out lights. My fingers tie knots like fish nets. I want to be in my mother’s house but she is all the way over the other side of the world. Boxes; I can’t see out of the back window. Leila is a bundle in […]

Hotel Room, 12th Floor - by Norman MacCaig

{ Poem }

This morning I watched from here
a helicopter skirting like a damaged insect
the Empire State Building,

Mrs Midas - by Carol Ann Duffy

{ Poem }

It was late September. I’d just poured a glass of wine, begun
/ to unwind, while the vegetables cooked. The kitchen
/ filled with…

Originally - by Carol Ann Duffy

{ Poem }

We came from our own country in a red room
/ which fell through the fields, our mother singing
/ our father’s name to…

Havisham - by Carol Ann Duffy

{ Poem }

Beloved sweetheart bastard. Not a day since then
/ I haven’t wished him dead. Prayed for it
/ so hard I’ve dark green pebbles…

Keeping Orchids - by Jackie Kay

{ Poem }

The orchids my mother gave me when we first met
/ are still alive, twelve days later. Although
/
/ some of the buds remain…

Gap Year - by Jackie Kay

{ Poem }

Gap Year
/ (for Mateo)
/
/ I
/ I remember your Moses basket before you were born.
/ I’d stare at the fleecy white sheet for days, weeks,
/ willing…

Basking Shark - by Norman MacCaig

{ Poem }

To stub an oar on a rock where none should be,
/ To have it rise with a slounge out of the…

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