Skeleton Architecture

Do you do any of those photo challenges on Instagram? I used to do it more than I do now, but I still take part in the So Good in Every Way  fortnightly themes (sometimes), and the Snap Happy Britmums daily prompts (again, sometimes). Todays prompt was words, and I was sitting in my kids' school this morning, waiting to help out with walking a bunch of kids to another school, and thinking about how the rhyme, 'sticks and stones' has changed as schools have become more cognicent of the long term damaging effects of verbal bullying. When I was a kid we taunted bullies that words would never hurt me. My own eating disorder, other self harming, and so much other stuff can testify to the nonsense of that. Now my kids are taught the rhyme 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can really hurt me.' and it's true. Physical violence is rubbish, but we should never underestimate the long term harm of verbal violence. Hence my poem today. It's almost a ...

So I'm a bit late to this party, but Jackie Kay was named as the new Makar (the Scottish Poet Laureate) back in March, there's a lovely interview with her on Woman's Hour, talking about getting the phone call from Nicola Sturgeon (the Scottish First Minister). It's early on in the programme here . So I thought I'd share five of my favourites of her poems. First up is 'Her', a haunting poem which brings up more questions than it answers, and has a lovely rhythm to it. You can hear Jackie read it here . On the same site you can hear her read Things Fall Apart , which is a fascinating slice of an important moment in Jackie's life. I was drawn to it for the title, reminding me of Chinua Achebe's novel of the same name, taken from the line in Yeats' poem, The Second Coming : "things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;". I love the way Kay focuses in on her father and then out to the context, finally lighting on the connection between th...