Ghazal for R.L.S.

Miriam Nash was judged runner-up in last year’s Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Since then she’s been snapped up by Bloodaxe, which is publishing her debut collection, All the Prayers in the House (Bloodaxe, £9.95). Indeed, Bloodaxe is staging a showcase event at the Scottish Poetry Library on 10 June at 7pm (£7 / £6 concessions) featuring no less than five Scotland-based female poets whose work they publish: Nash, Tracey Herd, Macgillivray, Cheryl Follon and Claire Askew. As a taster, here’s Nash’s poem paying tribute to arch island-hopper Robert Louis Stevenson and his insatiable wanderlust. n

Meet me in the atlas of remote islands— I’ll be the lizard-backed, no boat island.

Don’t we share a love for the essentials? Escape or siege, which best denotes ‘island’?

Under Samoa’s ferning waterfalls I doubt you missed our tufted west coast islands.

I scratched a makeshift tombstone in the sand: Robert Louis Stevenson wrote islands.

My days are empty as Bikini Atoll and I’m growing smaller like most islands.

You’d think I’d had enough of edge-living but one drink and I still start to boast islands.

Where are we from then, Robert / Tusitala? the breeze barfs, bringing up ghost islands.