Changing Places with What Goes Before: The Po¬ etry of Kathleen Jamie

Abstract

Jon Coreli’s essay “From Scotland to Suburbia: A Landscape of Current British Poetry,” published in Chapman (1997) concluded that “today’s best British Poetry [...] is associated with Scotland [...] The work of these Scottish poets exemplifies many of the qualities which I personally find most appealing in poetry: a diction which is both naturally colloquial and deliberately poetic, the ability to express intense emotion with unapologetic directness [...]” is well justified by the work of Kathleen Jamie, who will be the centre of attention of this article. My starting point will be her evocative poem “Mr and Mrs Scotland are Dead,” an obituary-cum-requiem for a real but simultaneously representative couple, identifiable as working-class Scots, with a clear sense of values as concerns their class, gender role and national identity. Because modernity has erased or partially obscured these parameters, much contemporary poetry either looks backward to when Mr and Mrs Scotland were alive, or tries to come to terms with a new set of defining concepts. I will also lean heavily on Kathleen Jamie’s travel writing, and in particular The Golden Peak: Travels in Northern Pakistan (1992).