Pocket Money

The Drift is a performance poetry play that will go on a Scotland-wide tour with the National Theatre of Scotland in October. Its author, Hannah Lavery, has published a selection of poems from the monologue in a new pamphlet Finding Sea Glass: Poems from The Drift (Stewed Rhubarb, £5.99). An exploration of grief, anger and growing up mixed-race in Scotland, the poems often focus on Lavery’s father, a man who, as depicted in the poem “Pocket Money,” was as careless with his cash as he was with his relationship with his daughter.

he never had a wallet kept his money like dirty hankies stuffed in back pockets

was always losing fivers money slipping away like eels to be found stranded

in sofa cracks, dragging knuckles stuck to the arses of jockeys stuffed in back pockets

falling out like family