After this outbreak
in Edinburgh, don’t
knock health and safety
Were we
too kind
to the Poles?
Norway’s undying
gratitude
to Shetland
With one final
shove, the bin
clicked shut
The tribe:
Rangers and
Scottish literature
Alasdair McKillop reflects on his recent interview with novelist Alan Bissett
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Rubbish in the river Clyde at the Broomielaw
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
The Cafe
The Cafe is our readers’ forum. Send your contribution to islay@scottishreview.net
Daughter
of the
Farm – 1980
Gerard Rochford’s June poem
‘Passionate fear of pity is also pity.’
Robin Skelton
The family had a saying: Honest as a collie.
Reared to believe that it’s the sons who count,
only boys are handsome, useful, inherit,
the boys, only the boys, the boys…
She grew up to defy them, went to Oxford,
fell for her female tutor, never declared;
played the piano, painted exquisite flowers,
took a first-class honours, worked as a typist.
And there she was at eighty looking back,
aloof as a duchess, witty; treating me
like a servant, which I was willing to be.
Honest as a collie: and indeed she was,
shepherding her memories, keeping watch
for any hint of pity as her words came sheaved
in sadness for the love that passed her by.
Put down for not working the land
and planting more boys.
Gerard lives in Aberdeen. He is the Scottish Review’s Makar and contributes a poem each month. Publications include: ‘Failing Light’ and ‘Of Love
and Water’
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