Shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize
Kathleen Jamie is one of Britain’s leading poets. Her work is intelligent and subtle, her language inventive and refreshing. Mr and Mrs Scotland Are Dead is a selection from her early collections, from times of change and travel. It reveals the generous range of her concerns, from life in the wilder parts of Pakistan and Tibet to the ‘difficult questions’ of identity posed in her much celebrated collection, The Queen of Sheba, which was shortlisted for both the T.S. Eliot and Forward Prizes.
Mr and Mrs Scotland Are Dead is a seminal volume in modern Scottish poetry. Shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize, it was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. It includes most of her poems from Black Spiders (1982), A Flame in Your Heart (1986), The Way We Live (1987), The Autonomous Region (1993) and The Queen of Sheba (1994).
‘Genius is no stranger to the work of Kathleen Jamie. With each successive theme to which Jamie turns her vision she brings the gift of insight and mystery…poetry of stunning clarity and musicality’ – The Scotsman.
‘With The Queen of Sheba Kathleen Jamie has produced the best individual collection of poems by a woman living in 20th century Scotland. The book establishes her eminence among Scottish poets of her generation. The precision and resource of her language have never been combined more impressively than here’ – Robert Crawford, The Scotsman.
‘This fierce, blanched, singing verse is exquisitely gathered by a fine ear: here is a poet who knows when to break her lines, how to warm her syntax, how to repeat and exhort, how to tilt and dangle’ – James Wood, London Review of Books.
‘A deep lyricism married to intelligent and highly disciplined verse’ – Scotland on Sunday.
Kathleen Jamie reads 'Mr and Mrs Scotland Are Dead'
Kathleen Jamie reads the title-poem of her Bloodaxe selection Mr and Mrs Scotland Are Dead in Toronto when the book was shortlisted for the 2003 Griffin Poetry Prize.
