Far Field E-Book

Jim Carruth

• Herausgeber: Polygon
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 53

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Far Field is the third and final book in The Auchensale Trilogy, a series of poetry cycles capturing the changing rural landscape of the West of Scotland. Following on from its predecessors Black Cart and Bale Fire, the book consists of three cycles bound together by footers. A number of poems in the early part of the book are in response to paintings by the Glasgow Boys particularly those painted during their time spent in agricultural communities. Many of the poems are highly personal with a number about family members. These include a series of elegies for his late father. It also focuses on the present day looking to the challenges ahead for the family farm and that passing baton to the next generation.     

Leseprobe

FAR FIELD

Born in Johnstone in 1963, Jim Carruth grew up on his family’s farm in Renfrewshire. His first collection Bovine Pastoral (2004) was the first of a sequence of five chapbooks that captured the experiences of those working in the rural landscape. His work has attracted both praise and awards, including the McLellan Poetry Competition, the McCash Poetry Prize and the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award. In 2009, he was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. He has collaborated with sculptor Andy Scott on several projects over the years, most notably The Kelpies, and in 2014, he was appointed as the Poet Laureate for Glasgow. In 2015, his verse novella Killochries was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Scottish Poetry Book of the Year, the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize and the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize. Far Field is the final part of The Auchensale Trilogy following on from Black Cart (2017) and Bale Fire (2019).

‘Far Field is the stunning culmination of a hugely ambitious trilogy celebrating Carruth’s love for a rural landscape and its people. In essence, think of A Scots Quair as enduring song. I cannot think of any other collection which so intimately and sensitively documents a beloved corner of a beloved country and the folk who farmed there, through all their seasons and weathers.’

JOHN GLENDAY

‘In deeply moving poems, as fierce as they are tender, Carruth honours a way of life that is threatened or already lost. His vivid language immerses us in the daily work of caring for animals, fields, family and neighbours. Every line is as honed as the landscape, evoking the harrowing, relentless aspects of farming as well as the meaning and beauty to be found in everyday routines. Endurance is threaded through the collection as is love and the potential for regeneration.’

JANE CLARKE

‘Far Field completes Jim Carruth’s marvellous trilogy that began with Black Cart and Bale Fire. I am in awe of his verbal power and the author’s fidelity to love, loss, and community. This is a book of land and landscapes, and the gift of being alive to them.’

DAVID MORLEY

First published in paperback in Great Britain in 2023 byPolygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd.

Birlinn Ltd

West Newington House

10 Newington Road

Edinburgh EH9 1QS

www.polygonbooks.co.uk

Copyright © Jim Carruth, 2023

ISBN 978 1 84697 636 0

EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78885 578 5

The moral right of Jim Carruth to be identified as theauthor of this work has been asserted inaccordance with the Copyright, Designsand Patents Act, 1988.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available onrequest from the British Library.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges investment fromCreative Scotland towards the publication of this book.

Typeset in Verdigris mvb by The Foundry, EdinburghPrinted and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.

For Lorna, David, Hannah and Paul

CONTENTS

Author’s note

1. LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE

Landscape with Cattle

A Hind’s Daughter

Straw

By Heart

Schoolmates

Barefoot Days

Milk Tank

The Basics

Playing the Milkmaid in the Hameau de la Reine

Flow

Trawlerman

Anatomical Model of the Cow

Days of Whitewash

Shearing

Scythe

The Hedgecutter

Days Left Till Harvest

Harvest Epilogue

Harvest Wake

The Hireling’s Lullaby

2. Earthstruck

Earthstruck

A Rough Sonnet from the Blacksmith’s Son

The Gamekeeper’s Daughter

Tenderness

You Smell of the Farm

At First Sight

A Good Judge of Horse Flesh

Missing the Harvest Dance

Leviathan

Every Man his Own Cattle Doctor

Casting a Cow, Ringing a Bull

Four Millimetres

Warning Signs

The Shepherd’s Loss

Robertson’s First Wake

MacIntyre’s Big Horse

Preparing the Ground

Migration

Gone Out

My Father’s Soil

3. STEPPING STONES

Stepping Stones

The Course of the Locher Water

Traveller

Old Boots

Without an Epiphany from the Belly of a Whale

Market Talk

Long Way Round

Viewpoint

Bringing in the Cows

My Wife’s Whistle

My Brother’s Cloud

My Father’s Hands

Gene Pool

Atrial Fibrillation

Roe

Aeolian Harp

Preparing the Pipe

Vespers

Milk Fever

Planting Aspen Saplings

Acknowledgements

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The footers in the first section trace a journey across the body of a cow. The footers in the second section are the main buildings in the family farm providing the physical definition of home. The footers in the final section are the many different spellings of the family name. As many of the descendants in the past were illiterate farm workers this has led to the variety seen today.

A number of poems in the first part of the book have been inspired by the work of the Glasgow Boys in the late nineteenth century. Early in their careers, some of the artists focussed on working ‘en plein air’ within rural communities trying to capture a more naturalistic response to those who worked there. The following works have been used as starting points to poems in the collection:

Landscape with Cattle

Joseph Crawhall

A Hind’s Daughter

James Guthrie

Boy with a Straw

James Guthrie

Schoolmates

James Guthrie

The Milkmaid

George Henry

Sheep Shearing

James Guthrie

The Hedgecutter

George Henry

Gypsy Fires are Burning forDaylight’s Past and Gone

James Guthrie

The Gamekeeper’s Daughter

E.A. Walton

‘Playing the Milkmaid in the Hameau de la Reine’: Marie Antionette used to amuse herself and her friends by portraying a milkmaid in her own rustic landscape created by architect Richard Mique.

‘Four millimetres’ describes the regular TB testing of cattle.

‘My Wife’s Whistle’: Wellees is the name of my brother-in-law’s farm.

gifts

from my father

the lyric rhythm

of furrow

from my mother

the fertile depth

of soil

LANDSCAPE WITHCATTLE

Okay, I like cows

GEORGE BAILEY

Landscape with Cattle

On these flooded flatlands perspective is key

as is the journey my eye has taken

from the distant horizon set by the sea.

Its ripple seen in the middle distance

in the ridge line of the red-roofed cottage

and in the foreground’s straight-backed cattle.

These white beasts have grown to fill my view.

Standing in shallow water, offering up reflections,

I find the deep calm of their cud chewing

cannot easily be conveyed, nor its stark contrast

with a day’s busyness: flit and twist of swallows