Darling: New & Selected Poems (2024)

that was wonderful

The title poem, Darling, is one of the best poems I've ever read.

A beautiful collection that brings together a variety of voices and emotions.

Sometimes I just find someone whose writing I want to inhale. Interestingly enough (to me anyway), two of the writers I feel most strongly about in this way are lesbians (Jeanette Winterson & Ali Smith), though their descriptions of childhood, adult orientation in a community, etc., strike me (as Margaret Atwood once wrote) as "homeground, foreign territory." It's not "me" but I feel great kinship with it. I can add Jackie Kay to that list now. I had previously read two poems of hers (one contained within an Ali Smith novel) and looked up Darling in consequence. It is kind of a "greatest hits" collection, representing, as is not uncommon with poets, and effort to collect together and preserve in one collection all the earlier work with which the writer remains more or less content. Multiple voices, a fine eye for detail, and (in my favourite poets anyway) the usual capacity to heartscald with strikingly uncommon frequency and familiarity. Again, though I have never been an adopted Black woman in Scotland, I feel Kay's work is home for me.

The poem didn't have a basic rhyming pattern which I liked, it made it more mature to read. When reading this poem the one line which stood out to me was 'the dead don't go til you do, loved ones', I thought this was a really powerful line in the poem. This is also the most memorable part of the poem for me, I think for people who have experienced morning this is very relevant, and also for people from a religious background. The poem is very clever as it doesn't rhyme but the lines link together by the connotations between the words.

I we introduced to Jackie Kay’s work during the pandemic when she read poems on Twitter. She was also in her last year of being Makar, or the poet laureate of Scotland. She read her poem “Darling” at a time when I was still mourning the death of a younger brother. It provided some comfort so I twitted back a thank you which she responded to. This selection is a broad view of her work that reflects her country, her race, family and loves.

What odd traits have been passed down? Background?
Christ! I come from a long line of sufferers.
We lived with live-in disease-ridden beasts.
We caught rabies, had babies, passed madness down.
We clenched our crossed teeth.

Mostly not my thing. Love her though.

My favourites :
Dance of the cherry blossom
Race, racist,racism
Clay
Somebody else
Mirror mirror
Rubber

Such a beautiful collection

Beautiful, beautiful poems. It's a fantastic collection from one of Scotland's best poets.

This collection of poems is beautiful from start to finish. Her work inspired by her own adoption in particular is so moving. Each voice within that story is so striking. The way she covers race and sexuality is so open but also delicate. She writes about current affairs excellently too, without it ever seeming like a gimmick. Overall, a very diverse collection of poetry - definitely something in it for everyone.

So far, this book is addling my brain. I'm not entirely sure I like its form -- I don't really think of it as particularly poetic so far. It's kind of interlaced short story considering Jackie Kay's birth mother and her adoptive mother, and Jackie herself as she as an adult tried to find the former.

But so far there's no doubting that it's very poignant. Being that I'm soppy, slightly broody and stuck with a near-useless set of seminiferous tubules I was in a bit of a state trying to read on a packed London Overground this morning. But we'll see whether the form and content prove too much in the end. Or whether I manage to finish it off before Hackney public libraries ask for their book back.

...

Okay.

I finished the book. I started out not being sure about it, and then as I stuck with it, I found I liked it more. A lot of it feels slightly more like poetic anecdotes than straight-up poetry, mind you, but that's cool. A lot of very personal recollections about falling in love and losing the love of your life. Especially good bits about having to share a flat with someone incredibly significant in your life after breaking up, and having to endure the pain of knowing about their new relationship.

Also, she's pretty good at writing about significant current affairs -- one about Joy Gardner, a Jamaican immigrant who died during an Immigration service raid was particularly poignant, as was her poem about the closure of libraries. Considering it was written 20-odd years ago, it did touch a nerve.

Unmissable was her poems about the Broons, which I took to be about the Glaswegian family from the comics of the same name. There's a beautiful one in which Pa Broon, inspired by Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, demands oral sex from Ma Broon.

She's actually doing a talk about children's poetry this summer, somewhere nearby, so I'll see if I can check her out.

And actually, my tubules are okay. Sorry to them and my vas deferens for being so disrespectful.

Still dipping in and out of this, loving the familiar as well as the new.

I just love this collection - it is so diverse - I wish I could write poems like Jackie. I have read the Adoption Papers before but never tire of them.

Well, it's poetry! I'll tell you my favourite from it soon.