Kathleen Jamie Journalist Profile

Articles

Alan Garner’s living tapestry

Oct 16, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Kathleen Jamie

“Powsels” and “thrums” are old words for waste threads, especially the end of a warp thread in a loom, which weavers kept for their own use. Alan Garner, ever alert to dialect and etymology, here extends a metaphor to include his own practise – “the oldest of stories, made into other tales” – and to this book itself, which contains two dozen essays, lectures and poems, the off-cuts that make up a “tapestry of a creative life”. It’s a very long creative life.
Burning Planet takes an alien’s-eye view of humanity

Sep 27, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Kathleen Jamie

If, 500 years ago, travellers from a far universe had happened to fly past Earth, they might have noted its clean oceans, its wildlife-rich woodlands and jungles, its ice caps. They’d have seen a human population still confined by the natural forces of season and photosynthesis. No space-flight here. If humans travelled at all, it was on their own two feet, or by using animals or wind. Passing again today, the aliens might ask: what the hell happened?
The Keelie Hawk by Kathleen Jamie

Sep 26, 2024 | booksfromscotland.com | Kathleen Jamie |Patrick E. Jamieson

‘There. Whitivver rises/ will drift back doon./ Whit this dey brings ye’ll face.’Our outgoing Makar’s newest poetry collection is a treat; celebrating language, people, nature and place. We’re thrilled to bring you a selection of poems, tantalising you with a little taster!The Keelie HawkBy Kathleen JamiePublished by PicadorKillileepie Mind hou we sclimt a cleuch whaur a wheen birks grou’d, bieldit frae hungry deer, syne follaed the burn till we cam tae an airie amang laigh hills?
Sunil Amrith’s Burning Planet takes an alien’s-eye view of humanity

Sep 25, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Kathleen Jamie

If, 500 years ago, travellers from a far universe had happened to fly past Earth, they might have noted its clean oceans, its wildlife-rich woodlands and jungles, its ice caps. They’d have seen a human population still confined by the natural forces of season and photosynthesis. No space-flight here. If humans travelled at all, it was on their own two feet, or by using animals or wind. Passing again today, the aliens might ask: what the hell happened?
Swansong - Books from Scotland

Sep 18, 2024 | booksfromscotland.com | Graeme Macrae Burnet |Kathleen Jamie

We are eagerly awaiting the final instalment of Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Inspector Gorski Mysteries, and so, to whet our appetite, we spoke its author (and translator!)A Case of MatricideBy Graeme Macrae BurnetPublished by SarabandHello Graeme, a hearty congrats for the publication of A Case of Matricide. Could you tell our readers a little bit of what to expect from the novel? Thanks.
David Robinson Reviews: Cairn by Kathleen Jamie

Jun 10, 2024 | booksfromscotland.com | Kathleen Jamie |Patrick E. Jamieson

‘So yes, this is a bleak book, but why shouldn’t it be? … Cairn is too honest to leave room for facile optimism.’Can joy be found amidst extinction? How can we write of the natural world in an era of widespread climate anxiety? These are the questions asked of Kathleen Jamie’s highly-anticipated new book, Cairn, in David Robinson’s latest review. CairnBy Kathleen JamiePublished by Sort Of BooksI don’t know about you, but I’d never heard of Georges Couvier. Same with the word ‘eustatic’.
John Burnside’s soul music

Jun 4, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Kathleen Jamie

“I was a pit-town child, escaping,” wrote John Burnside in his memoir, A Lie About My Father. Raised in pit and steel communities with their damaged masculinities, a Catholic in Protestant Scotland, John Burnside went on to became a titan of literature, not least because his was a generation who regarded their backgrounds and “identities” as something to be transcended or transformed. He knew that a world of the half-sensed and imagined lay beyond and suffused the immediate everyday.
The lure of the English garden

May 22, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Kathleen Jamie

Two English gardens, possibly no more than 25 miles apart on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, attended by two people in different stages of life. The younger, delighted to have a garden of her own, is dashing to recreate one fallen into neglect. The elder is content to play a long game, watch and learn, wait and see. Olivia Laing spent her younger life in a state of upheaval.
A reckoning for the British Museum

Apr 10, 2024 | newstatesman.com | Kathleen Jamie

Do you believe in ghosts? Do you believe that unhappy spirits can walk, slam doors, go bump in the night? Do you believe that objects can retain potency even, or perhaps especially, if violently uprooted from their culture of origin? Here’s a less occult question: does anyone actually know what is in the British Museum (BM), that five-hectare compound, with its many-levelled 18th-century building plus its various outposts and stores?
The Dipper by Kathleen Jamie

Jan 23, 2024 | poetryfoundation.org | Kathleen Jamie

About this Poet Born in the west of Scotland, Kathleen Jamie studied philosophy at Edinburgh University. At 19 she won the prestigious Eric Gregory Award, which enabled her to explore the Himalayas, and at 20 she published her first poetry collection, Black Spiders (1982). Jamie resists being identified solely... More About this Poet