Mary Thomson's reflections on her first year of living in Glasgow's East End are featured in her pamphlet - called simply East End - short-listed for this year's Callum Macdonald Memorial Award (run by the National Library of Scotland).
Mandy Sinclair's minimalist line-drawings enhance the poems, of which this is a sample.
EAST END SPRING
On a day when winter's dust and salt
still swirled at the road's edge
spring was stumbling awkwardly into itself
with scant grass needling through withered brush,
spills of daffodils on verges.
We had passed fields of muddied ponies,
acres of ploughed furrows drying to dun
in the fretful wind and tentative sun.
We were coming blindly
through a season of worry and scans,
so when we drove home
via a town called Halfway it,
and the day,
was of such a scrappy sort
we expected no better
of our place by the Green.
Yet when we walked by our rippling river
willows waved pale fronds,
cherry trees promised blossom.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article