In pictures: Iain Clark: Intimate Portraits of Scottish Writers
The Scotsman previews some of the portraits, together with some choice quotes from the writers’ works.
A.L. Kennedy
“We are not all connected. We are bags of skin. We are all separate bags
of thinking skin.”
• From What Becomes
Ian Rankin
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Hide Ad“On the steps of the Great London Road police station in Edinburgh,
John Rebus lit his last legitimate cigarette of the day before pushing open the
imposing door and stepping inside.”
• From Knots and Crosses
Douglas Dunn
Day by nomadic day
Our anniversaries go by,
Dates anchored in an inner sky,
To utmost ground, interior clay.
It was September blue
When I walked with you first, my love,
In Roukenglen and Kelvingrove,
Inchinnan’s beech-wood avenue.
• From Anniversaries
Edwin Morgan
A mean wind wanders through the backcourt trash.
Hackles on puddles rise, old mattresses
puff briefly and subside. Play-fortresses
of brick and bric-a-brac spill out some ash.
• From Glasgow Sonnet Noº 1
Liz Lochhead
Trouble is not my middle name.
It is not what I am.
I was not born for this.
Trouble is not a place
though I am in it deeper than the deepest wood
and I’d get out of it (who wouldn’t?) if I could.
• From Trouble is not my middle name
Tom Leonard
Helluva hard tay read theez init
stull
if yi canny unnirston thim jiss clear aff then
gawn
get tay f*** ootma road
• Six Glasgow Poems: From (6) Good Style
• Aye Write, 9-17 Mar, Mitchell Library, Glasgow, G3 7DN