A Choosing: Selected Poems

by Liz Lochhead

A stunning new collection of selected works from one of Scotland's most loved writers. During her career Liz Lochhead has been described variously as a poet, feminist playwright, translator and broadcaster but has said that "when somebody asks me what I do I usually say writer. The most precious thing to me is to be a poet. If I were a playwright, I'd like to be a poet in the theatre." Liz Lochhead has a large and devoted audience and delights audiences where she goes.

Genres: Poetry, Scotland

112 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2011

About the author

Liz Lochhead is a Scottish poet and dramatist, originally from Newarthill in North Lanarkshire. In the early 1970s she joined Philip Hobsbaum's writers' group, a crucible of creative activity - other members were Alasdair Gray, James Kelman, and Tom Leonard. Her plays include Blood and Ice, Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (1987), Perfect Days (2000) and a highly acclaimed adaptation into Scots of Molière's Tartuffe (1985). Her adaptation of Euripides' Medea won the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award in 2001. Like her work for theatre, her poetry is alive with vigorous speech idioms; collections include True Confessions and New Clichés (1985), Bagpipe Muzak (1991) and Dreaming Frankenstein: and Collected Poems (1984). She has collaborated with Dundee singer-songwriter Michael Marra.

In January 2011 she was named as the second Scots Makar, or national poet, succeeding Edwin Morgan who had died the previous year.

Reviews

[Isabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

feeding off female rage every single day

[J.M. Langan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Liz Lochhead

[yassie · Rating 3 out of 5]

'When at our lover's feet our opened selves we've laid / We find ourselves, and all the world, remade.'

[Hannah Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

"And I am coming from the library
with my arms full of books.
I think of those prizes that were ours for the taking
and wonder when the choices got made
we don't remember making."

[Toby · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely and diverse collection of poems from the former poet laureate of Scotland. The poems are not in chronological order which allows the reader to dart through 30 years of Lochhead's work without the feel of a trail of breadcrumbs. Each poem is however paired with the following one, so neither is this a random collection. Lochhead deals with love, memory, history and fate. The title poem A Choosing, speaking of the paths that she and another girl took, dictated by their respective parents, is a lovely and sobering reflection on how choices are made for us early on. A Night In is a beautiful love poem celebrating the ordinariness of a relationship that can be marked by a meal of veggie bake with rat-trap cheese. And the bride and groom for whom she wrote the poem Epithalamium were blessed indeed. I have a couple of her other unread volumes lying around, a state of being which I will now rectify.

[Dr. des. Siobhán · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some beautiful poems in this one including one of my all time favourites: Kidspoem / Bairnsang. High rating because of all the personal memories attached to this poem (and others) + Edinburgh during my former life as an academic.

[Eugenia Andino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy original, a veces tierno.

[Hazel Johnstone · Rating 4 out of 5]

i'm not a poetry fan but liked this very much

[Caity · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some real gems amoungst the collection.

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting - particularly liked the poem “The Choosing” itself. Thought provoking.

[May · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore Liz Lochhead poetry and this an incredible collection of what i deem to be her best.

[Rhiannon Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of touching poems with a deft use of intimate detail.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for A Level English Literature

A couple were wonderful, many were average, and the rest... I question why many exist. There were several poems within this collection that lacked poetic quality, and where there was little to nothing to analyse or delve into.

[Izzy]

There is plenty to be said for plainspoken poetry, and Liz Lochhead is often at her best as an observational poet. I particularly enjoyed reflections of Glasgow, and the use of Scots as in 'Kidspoem / Bairnsang'.

[Linda Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to my transplanted Scottish family who first introduced me to the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy and then via the Edinburgh bookshop, the amazing Liz Lochhead. Lochhead is described as a Makar, or a national poet, and many of her poems reflect her people,and their physical landscapes but with often a funny perspective. My favorite line from "Everybody's Mother" is "Nobody's mother can't not never do nothing right." The poem that physically stirred my senses was "The New-married Miner" but all the poetry was personal to me.