Book review: Neu Reekie #UntitledThree, edited by Kevin Williamson and Michael Pedersen

Michael Pedersen and Kevin Williamson of Neu! Reekie!

Literary and arts collective Neu! Reekie! is an immaculate example of the make-your-own-scene ethos. Founded by poet Michael Pedersen and writer and publisher Kevin Williamson in December 2010, this grassroots group quickly built up a rich back catalogue of cross-cultural happenings where poetry was celebrated as the new rock’n’roll, and the old rock’n’roll was just celebrated.

As its urgent, pithy name attests, Neu! Reekie! is Edinburgh-based but with eagle eyes on the world, welcoming artists from home and away to be part of its gatherings and its output, retaining a gonzo spontaneity while comfortably curating events for prestigious global festivals.

As its tenth birthday approaches, Neu! Reekie! publishes #UntitledThree, its third anthology of poetry, written against a backdrop of uncertainty and anxiety which has only been magnified by the Covid pandemic.

From Turkey, Bejan Matur pens a modern psalm to perilous journeys undertaken in faith, capturing the spiritual anger and anguish of an enforced pilgrimage, with death at your shoulder. Meg Bateman’s “Creach nan Rathaidean” – which translates as Road Kill – makes the visceral comparison with the seeming dispatchability of migrants embarking on their own journeys of peril.

Closer still to home, Nadine Aisha Jassat meets prejudice on the streets of Edinburgh in “Scot-Mid”, Sarah Stewart offers a snapshot of how easily the disadvantaged can be criminalised and Sabrina Mahfouz’s satirical short play This Is How It Was presents grim statistics on the female prison population in the form of a quiz.

But there are celebrations too – of touch and intimacy from Malachy Tallack, of pastel-coloured personal memories from Hannah Lavery, of body decoration from AR Crow. Jackie Kay offers “The Long View”, a 20th birthday poem for the Scottish Parliament, while Williamson pays short but sweet tribute to fellow poet Roddy Lumsden, who died earlier this year. Pederson sends an encouraging missive to his timorous 12-year-old skater self and former Pet Poet Laureate (it’s a thing) Russell Jones imagines his wild days with “Del Boy”.

There is broad diversity in form and content. Here be Ciara MacLaverty’s warm domestic snapshots, Claire Askew’s clipped instructions, Gratiagusti Chananya Rompas’s stream of consciousness and Daljit Nagra’s fabulism. Bill Drummond’s “Life Model” is a set of instructions for a street happening on subverting the male gaze, while the rhythmic wordplay and phrasing of Stephen James Smith’s “Dublin You Are” is begging to be performed live, whenever that might be.

The parallel Neu! Reekie! musical family are likewise on live standby – in the meantime, an accompanying download album, encompassing hip-hop, electro pop, haunting folk and sultry chanson showcases Edinburgh veterans Finiflex and The Nectarine No.9, younger upstarts from Callum Easter to Be Charlotte, and a supremely soulful take on 10cc’s I’m Not In Love from the late Denise Johnson of Primal Scream.

Neu Reekie #UntitledThree, by Kevin Williamson and Michael Pedersen (eds), Polygon, £12.99

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