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  • Cold Caller
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Cold Caller

Richie McCaffery

Nearly all the names and numbers
in her leatherette phone book
are crossed or scribbled out.

One of these days I’ll dial
a dead number, wait and listen.

There will come a voice
cracked as a dry clarinet reed.

They remember me as a boy
and ask how school’s going.

When I tell them I’m now a man
they twig and hang up
on my cruel prank.


Richie McCaffery

from Cairn (Rugby: Nine Arches, 2014)

Reproduced by permission of the poet.

Tags:

Best Scottish Poems 2014 telephones

About this poem

This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2014. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor in 2014 was Roderick Watson.

Author's note:

'Cold Caller' began as a poem when I started to take note of old phone numbers I kept finding that were often a few digits too short. Twinned with this was the memory of my grandparents' phone-book and how certain numbers would be scribbled out when a person died. I also recall that my grandfather particularly disliked being cold-called and all of these ideas inform the poem.

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Best Scottish Poems 2014

edited by Roderick Watson
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Richie McCafferyb.1986

Richie McCaffery is a poet, blogger, critic and freelance scholar.
More about Richie McCaffery

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