Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • COVID-19
    • Re-Opening FAQ
  • Poetry
    • Poems
    • Poets
    • Our National Poet
    • Podcasts
    • Best Scottish Poems
    • Poetry and Mindfulness
    • Champions 2020
    • Posters
    • Publishers
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • National Poetry Day 2019
    • National Poetry Day archive
    • SQA set texts
    • Learning resources
    • New to poetry?
    • Advice for poets
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • Exhibitions
    • Venue hire
    • List an event
  • Shop
    • National Poetry Day 2020
    • New Titles
    • Poetry Pamphlet Cards
    • Pocket Poets
    • Scottish Poetry
    • Help
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Our projects
    • Jobs
    • Our building
    • FAQs
    • Find us
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
    • Easy Fundraising
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poetry
  • >
  • Jean Atkin
  • >
  • What’s Human
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

What’s Human

Jean Atkin

Outside under
this field of stars
in a frost that slows
the blood

we are the dark.

We hold in a creel
of air
what’s human

and stretch out
our fingertips
to the whorl of galaxies

to feel for what’s not there.


Jean Atkin

from Not Since Last Time (South Pool: Oversteps Books, 2013)

Reproduced by permission of the author.

Tags:

being human Best Scottish Poems 2013 connection night transcendance universe

About this poem

This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2013. 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 2013 was David Robinson.

Editor’s comment:

The contrast between the unknown depth between the stars and our own infinitely more transient lives is a common enough theme of poetry, but that doesn’t make it any the less remarkable – particularly when delivered with such concision, calling up comparison between those vast interstellar darknesses and uncharted depths within ourselves.

Author’s note:

‘What’s Human’ was written on my smallholding in Dumfriesshire during the bitterly cold winter of 2010-2011.  I was just beginning work on a large group of poems about the Galloway Forest – its dark skies, ruined farms and disappearing population – that later became a pamphlet, The Dark Farms (Roncadora Press). But on that night, I went outside to shut in the hens, then was tempted by the brilliance of the stars to walk across the frozen fields, feeling very cold, looking up into the sky.  This poem arrived, almost intact from the start.  It’s a poem that still takes me back to exactly that moment, that place, that bone-penetrating cold.  Afterwards, what took me longest was to choose the title.

Share this
Facebook
Twitter
Email

Learn more

Best Scottish Poems 2013

edited by David Robinson
Find out more

Jean Atkin

Jean Atkin grew up in Cumbria, with Shetland ancestry, and lived for twelve years on a smallholding in Dumfries and Galloway. She is now settled in Shropshire, working as a poet, writer and educator. Her first collection is Not...
More about Jean Atkin

Podcasts

Our audio programme of poets, poems and news for you to listen to.
Listen Now
  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2021.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
By leaves we live

The Scottish Poetry Library is staffed weekdays from 10am – 2pm and is providing a limited service including postal loans and Click & Collect. For details, click COVID-19 in the menu bar above. Dismiss