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  • Best Scottish Poems 2016
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Best Scottish Poems 2016

Don’t Hesitate to Ask - by Michel Faber

{ Poem }

So many of the people I’ve
/ informed that she is dead
/ have said
/ ‘If there’s anything
/ we can do, anything at all,
/ don’t hesitate…

People Made Glasgow - by Kate Tough

{ Poem }

Shame in our hulls
/ why else would we drink to incoherence
/ jump on the heads of passing men
/ punch our women
/ tell our children…

What Is It Like To Be A Herring Gull? - by Samuel Tongue

{ Poem }

After Thomas Nagel*
/
/ Circling the heavy church at the end of the street,
/ they see a cliff-stack above a grey Atlantic,
/
/ an inherited…

A Poem Before Breakfast - by Em Strang

{ Poem }

before the door opens and the pony crashes in with hoof-dirt and flicky
/ muzzle. You ordered eggs and toast but Pony’s…

Reprieve - by Alison Prince

{ Poem }

Be careful.
/ Just because death came
/ close enough to feel its non-breathing
/ and then stepped back,
/ you are no matador.
/ The blackness does not charge
/ in…

Full Stretch - by Tom Pow

{ Poem }

and this is where you are watching me before the fire and I am
/ lying with the death-stillness on me…

Breenge - by Stuart A. Paterson

{ Poem }

This morning, as the 372 shoogled
/ through Carsethorn, hirpled
/ wabbit past the kirk and through
/ dreich smirr hoyed down from
/ droukit braes above,…

What Not to Write on the Back Jacket of Your Debut Collection - by Helena Nelson

{ Poem }

This book is not bad.
/ A number of these poems feature the poet’s dog: George.
/ The author’s mother recommends this book.
/ Boris Johnson…

‘We used to think the universe was made…’ - by J.O. Morgan

{ Poem }

We used to think the universe was made
/ of tiny invisible pin-points of energy, jostling
/ and tumbling and buzzing together, and so,
/ by…

In the Mid-Midwinter - by Liz Lochhead

{ Poem }

the light comes back
the light always comes back

The Conversion of Sheep - by Hugh McMillan

{ Poem }

When St Fillian first came upon the sheep
/ they stood with their Sumerian heads
/ and stared him out…

This Is It - by William Letford

{ Poem }

Skint, baw ragged, poackets ful eh ma
/ fingers, cannae afford tae burn toast an
/ it’s November. Christmas is close. Av been
/ away bit…

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