Autumn 2017 - you have been good to me! I've written a dozen poems in the last month - I'm not entirely sure where I've found the time! But I've been in the 'zone' and I'm milking it for all it's worth because, of course, it won't last. 

So I've written 21 poems so far this year, last year was miserable - I only wrote 3. In 2015 I wrote 11 poems, 2014 - 31. And my highest number of poems in a year was in 2013 when I wrote 45. 

The last couple years I've been writing much longer poems and sequences which accounts for some of the number disparity.

Anyway this last month has been a sheer pleasure poetry-wise and Transtromer has been my go-to poet everyday. Through Transtromer I've allowed myself to write mostly lyrical nature poems, it's been nice not trying to force a bigger theme onto them. However I feel that I'm ready to go back to my ballad poems soon.

I'm thinking of a book wish-list for Christmas and so far have:

Louise Bourgeois: The Return of the Repressed: Psychoanalytic Writings  - quite pricey but sounds amazing and I do so love her work.

Antigonick by Anne Carson - not only is it brilliantly written but it is absolutely gorgeous book illustrated by Bianca Stone (I read a copy of it at Moniack Mhor earlier this year). 

Lorca: A Life by Ian Gibson - haven't read a biography for ages and I like a winter escape into another life.

The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images

W.S Merwin Selected Poems 

I'm officially addicted to writing sequences - I just can't seem to help it!
Autumn has always been a good writing time for me and autumnal poems have been spilling out of me over the last few weeks. So I guess I'm back to writing shorter, imagistic (but in sequences!) poems for now.

I've made Tomas Transtromer my current mentor poet - trying to work out how he comes up with those absolutely perfect metaphors, and how the inner and outer worlds come together so fluidly in his poems.

Transtromer was a psychologist and I've always been drawn to his dream-like poems, I occasionally use dream images / events in my own poems and have started recording a dream diary again. I particularly like how he zones in on the narrator's experience of the here and now - the eternal present. I'm doing a counselling skills course at the moment and it's challenging me very much to think about my feelings in the present - and of course this is all seeping into my poems.

I have a few poems out in submission, it feels good to have a growing number available - though I'm impatient to hear back!

"Scottish nationalist and feminist perspectives are refracted through a singular imagination drawn to the elemental... McCready is interested in the mysteries of birth and death, the mutability of matter, nature, myth, female experience and history as narrative of women's lives."

Delighted to read a review of Madame Ecosse in the latest issue of Poetry Review. It was reviewed by Ellen Cranitch and paired with her review of Dalgit Nagra's latest collection, which was an honour.

I'm also super-pleased to have a poem accepted for an anthology of poetry commemorating the centenary of W.S Graham - I'm so pleased to see W.S Graham and his work remembered, he is my favourite Scottish poet and I would love to see his work better known and his talent recognised.

A busy season of work and study has left little time for poetry so I'm sitting on the bare bones of at least four poems waiting on serious attention. Thankfully the busy season is coming to an end so I'm hoping to get stuck back into writing soon!

I've made it past the post-collection doldrums, thank goodness. I've been absorbed in reading Hart Crane's The Bridge and the work of a wonderful Slovenian poet called Ales Steger. I've been reading a collection of his called The Book of Things. It's a collection of brilliantly written object poems. He is often compared to Francis Ponge and is obviously influenced by him but definitely has his own voice and slant. 

I've had a busy summer working as a tour guide at Inveraray Castle since May. It's been an enjoyable experience - I've learned so much 17th and 18th century Scottish history and I've just finished writing a three-part poem sequence about the castle. 

The poem I wrote for the Scotia Extremis project will be published in a collection based on that project. And I'm delighted that a three-part ballad - my version of an old Scottish ballad about lovers who drown in the Clyde has been accepted by Poetry Magazine!!

It's hard to think of yourself as a writer during the periods you're not actually writing. I've come to realise that no matter how many poems I get published if I'm going through a period of not writing then it all feels very detached from me. The primary motivation for writing poetry is in the experience of the writing itself rather than publication, though it would feel pretty pointless if there was no aim at finding a readership for the work.

I'm a little bit in post-second-collection-limbo just now. I hate being in limbo. I have my ballad project which is on-going and I think will be a long-term project. But I don't feel like I have much of a focus for writing otherwise. I'm looking for new sources of inspiration and not sure where I'll find it. I've ordered a collection by the Romanian poet Marin Sorescu - I very much like the work of his I've read online and I have a tendency towards Eastern European poetry.  So I hope I find inspiration in his work. In the meantime I'm forcing myself to keep writing regularly, unedited stuff which may or may not occasionally unlock the poetry door.

Last month a poem from Madame Ecosse was Poem of the Week in The Scotsman Newspaper (thanks to Colin Waters of the Scottish Poetry Library!).

I've been plodding away working on some occasional poems alongside some ballads. I have four poems on the go at the moment and finding it good to be able to switch between poems when I get stuck on one.

Reading-wise I've been enjoying reading Siren by Canadian poet Kateri Lanthier and I've just got around to picking up a copy of Jane Kenyon's Selected poems from Bloodaxe. Still enjoying Kinnell's Selected - some stunning poems in there. I re-read Jay Parini's book on Theodore Roethke which truly is a wonderful read.

I'm between odd jobs at the moment and hate the lack of routine and uncertainty though all should be resolved in the next month. I've applied to do Counselling Skills - a part-time course at Strathclyde Uni starting later this year. My plan is to train as a professional counsellor part-time over the next three years which I'm excited about but a little daunted by the thought of juggling - work, family, study plus finding and clocking up the necessary volunteer counselling hours to qualify - and preserve my sanity by having writing time! I guess we'll see how it'll go!

Well it's been a busy month. A flying visit to London for the launch of Madame Ecosse - the launch went well, it was good to hear the other Eyewear poets read. I got to spend a few hours in the British Museum and in the British Library between train journeys.


Then it was a week up at beautiful Moniack Mhor with nine of this year's Scottish Book Trust New Writers awardees. It was an interesting week - we spent two of the evening reading some of our work. I particularly enjoyed hearing the prose writers as mostly I only go to poetry readings - lots of beautiful work being written.

It was great having access to the Moniack Mhor library and the northern branch of the Scottish Poetry Library which is there also.

My favourite discoveries were Anne Carson's Antigonick which is a gorgeous hardback with illustrations by Bianca Stone. Carson's translation of Sophocles' Antigone is hilarious, darkly comic and hard hitting. I loved it.
I also loved reading through the Selected Poems of Galway Kinnell and have since bought my own copy.

Between all of this, followed by a wee camping trip with the kids, I'm looking forward to not going anywhere else anytime soon!

Very happy to have my 'Twilight Sleep' poem showcased on Abigail Morley's The Poetry Shed which you can read here. It's from Madame Ecosse.

***********EYEWEAR SPRING LAUNCH************

I'm very much looking forward to launching Madame Ecosse in London this Friday -

17th March  7pm-9pm 

London Review Bookshop

There will be readings from Mariela Griffor, U.S. Dhuga, Kate Noakes, Jason Lee, Isabel Rogers, and Dick Watts of Post-Punk band The Passage.

Of course I'll be reading too! All welcome - there will be wine and beautiful books!!!

Plus it's St Patrick's Day! 

Snapshots of Madame Ecosse!!

I love to see pics of my collection out there in the big wide world - a little piece of me lives inside each one.

I've written my first ballad sequence based on Scots ballad 'Clyde's Water' also known as 'Mother's Malison'. You can read the original ballad and variants here.
It was collected by Henry James Child in his anthology of traditional ballads from Scotland and England published in the late 19th century, and is indexed as Child ballad 216.

It was challenging to write - bringing together the narrative aspect, incorporating ballad tropes and yet making it thoroughly my own poem.
The basic narrative is -  

Willie wishes to visit his lover. His mother bids him stay, and curses him to drown in Clyde if he goes. Willie, trusting in his horse, goes anyway, but his lover's mother bids him away. Returning, he drowns in Clyde; his lover drowns as she seeks him." 

I wrote it as a sequence of three poems in the voices of the three woman involved - the first is in the voice of William's mother, the second the voice of William's lover (May Margaret), and lastly in the voice of May Margaret's mother.

I used Lorca's Gypsy Ballads as inspiration,  and also especially his long sequence 'Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias' which is a stunning poem. I used some repetition and some stand-alone rhyming quatrains, and incorporated some lines from a traditional Scots folk / childrens song.
So at the moment it's around 140 lines long and needs to be put away for a while so I can gain perspective on it.

I've just finished reading A Lucid Dreamer: The Life of Peter Redgrove. I started reading it a few years back but didn't get too far, this time I thoroughly enjoyed it. The biography was pretty thorough regarding the details of Redgrove's life, but I'd like to see another biography written better with more analysis and insight. I'm a good bit of the way through Redgrove's collected poems and thoroughly enjoying them. It's funny how you can approach different poets at different times in your life - I couldn't make head nor tail of Redgrove a few years ago.
Sometimes it feels like there's no end to feeding the poem-monster - if I'm working on a poem I'm trying to finish it, if I'm not working on a poem I'm trying to write one and so on it goes.

I'm excited to be working on a new series of poems based on old Scottish ballads. It's an idea I've been toying with for a while but just didn't have the time to throw myself into.
Now is the time and after much reading and absorbing (finally finished my close reading of the Golden Bough) I'm in writing mode.

There's something about working on a project / theme over several poems that very much attracts me - I can really get absorbed in as opposed to writing occasional poems here and there.
I hope to be working on this intensely over the next couple of months.

Thanks to the wonderful Scottish Book Trust I'm going to Moniack Mhor for a writer's retreat at the end of March with this year's intake of New Scottish Writer Awardees. It's 14 miles outside Inverness and sounds/looks amazing. It will be wonderful to have a week in the Scottish highlands away from all responsibilities just to write.

However before then I have a quick jaunt to London for the official launch of Madame Ecosse which will be at the London Review Bookshop on Friday 17th March. Also hoping to plan over the next few months reading/launches in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Signed copies available from myself (UK only) if you click on the 'buy now' button on the left!


Delighted to have the book finally in my hands and I'm over-the-moon at what a beautiful object it is! Eyewear Publishing have done a wonderful job with it - thanks especially to Todd Swift and Edwin Smet at Eyewear!

She's nearly here...

After much toing and froing Madame Ecosse is finally at the printers - I'm so looking forward to seeing the book jump out of my head (off the page) and come to life as a real thing!

I did a phone interview for Napier University student magazine about my writing which you can read the write-up of here.

I'm enjoying having time to read and start to write again. Tentatively writing notes, odd lines and images - slowing feeling my way back into writing mode. I've been reading James Wright and today I started reading Adam Zagajewski's Unseen Hand collection - wonderful wonderful poems.

After having spent Christmas in the hyperreality that is Disneyland Paris - where the initial dream-like cartoony fantasy-joy of sweet childhood nostalgia turns eventually into some Kafkaesque nightmare where every time you close your eyes magnified shapes and colours turn endlessly, cloying disney music burns on your brain and Cheshire cat smiles grow grotesquely larger on every princess' face. 'The Happiest Place on Earth' - where everyone is happy whether or not they are happy (sounds more like North Korea). However I did enjoy it - an experience truly of our age, and of course my kids had a blast though after four days they too were glad to get away from it.

Now is the time to break back into that distant memory of writing poems - put an end to post-holiday fatigue and discipline the days again.  

Plan - 

Spend an hour a day close reading The Golden Bough, making notes

Start working on random poems to break the inertia - read Lawrence and Bhatt for inspiration

Read Read Read

Continue this until the bones of a theme start to reveal themselves

Happy New Year!