Madness Lake

The name of Le Lac de Folly near Samoëns in south-eastern France is a near-homonym for Le lac de folie – the Lake of Madness. Hence the title of Yvonne Reddick’s poem, taken from her pamphlet Translating Mountains (Seren, £5). Her writing, both as a poet and as an academic, has focused on how poets engage with place and the environment. On 9 June, Reddick leads poetry lovers up Arthur’s Seat. She’ll read and discuss poems al fresco by writers known for their love of walking such as Kathleen Jamie. Afterwards at the Scottish Poetry Library, she’ll show the group how to use their experiences to write about nature and place. Tickets are £8 (£6 concessions) and available from the SPL.

Not even when we gripped the clammy chain to haul ourselves up the ice-scoured Dalle did I think it was possible that you, like a glacier, could change state from solid to intangible in the pause between my heartbeats. Grinning and mopping your sunburnt brow, you, my father, seemed imperishable as the snow-hooded Pointe overhead. When we reached the lake the glacier calved with a gunshot, jostled its floating bergs – even then, its snout was retreating. Twenty years to the day since we last trekked this crisscross path to Lac de Folly: Madness Lake. The sign still reads “Caution: year-round snow” but the floes are thin water – has it really been nine months? You can find a copy of Translating Mountains by Yvonne Reddick 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.