Snowdrops

By Ciara Mac Laverty

Ciara Maclaverty’s debut pamphlet Past Love in the Museum of Transport (Tapsalteerie, £5) comes loaded with praise from the kind of names you want to see on your publications: Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian, William Letford and Liz Lochhead, who says, “These poems – in the voice of a woman, a mother, a good neighbour of the here-and-now – are light-but-deep, often funny, always generous.” The light-but-deep element Lochhead identifies can be seen in a poem taken from the pamphlet, “Snowdrops”, which quietly and powerfully deals with loss and joy.

Once, you told me, when you brought me home from the hospital, that snowdrops were out in the garden and every January when I see their fragile, cotton-bud heads I think, there is my flower, our flower.

Likewise, bonfire night will always be the long night my son was born and I can’t remember what flowers you brought to the ward the next morning, only your face, full of concern, as you came through a gap in the curtain and I cried, a baby in your arms.

You can find a copy of Past Love in the Museum of Transport by Ciara Maclaverty at the Scottish Poetry Library, 5 Crichton’s Close, Edinburgh EH8 8DT. For poetry enquiries, e-mail reception@spl.org.uk or visit www. scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk.