Kate Hendry writes with restraint and poignancy about family relationships in The Lost Original (HappenStance, £5), one of the shortlisted entries in this year’s Callum Macdonald Memorial Award for Poetry Pamphlets (administered by the National Library of Scotland).
THE ART OF READING
In 1979 I read Enid Blyton
on the landing
in the yellow armchair.
~
My mother at the end of the corridor,
my brother upstairs, my father
renovating his latest rusty mangle.
~
Into the yellow armchair
first thing in the morning.
I read non-stop.
~
My mother, at the far end
of the corridor, with laundry basket
and damp sheets.
~
My brother, in his red room,
practising hitches and turns
from the Ashley Book of Knots.
~
My father, in the garage,
oiling wooden rollers,
building up layers of turquoise paint.
~
I read The Magic Faraway Tree
and finished it in one day,
starting the next one straight away.
~
I read till the sheets
were folded and the paint
was dry and the knots were all undone.
~
My father thought it dross.
He took his Acme mangle
with him when he left.
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