May Day

by Jackie Kay

May Day is the long-awaited new poetry collection from one of our best-loved poets and former Makar of Scotland, Jackie Kay.

These poems cast an eye over several decades of political activism, from the international solidarity of the Glasgow of Kay’s childhood, accompanying her parents’ Socialist campaigns, through the feminist, LGBT+ and anti-racist movements of the 80s and 90s, up to the present day when a global pandemic intersects with the urgency of Black Lives Matter.

Kay brings to life a cast of influential figures, delving beneath the surfaces of received narratives: the Jamaican model Fanny Eaton, muse of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England; Paul Robeson, Angela Davis and the poet Audre Lorde; and a ‘what-if’ poem concerning Rabbie Burns and a road-not-taken towards the West Indian slave trade. Woven through the collection is a suite of lyric poems concerning the recent losses of Kay’s parents: poems of grief and profound change that are infused with the light of love and celebration.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published April 25, 2024

About the author

Born in Glasgow in 1961 to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father, Kay was adopted by a white couple, Helen and John Kay, as a baby. Brought up in Bishopbriggs, a Glasgow suburb, she has an older adopted brother, Maxwell as well as siblings by her adoptive parents.

Kay's adoptive father worked full-time for the Communist Party and stood for election as a Member of Parliament, and her adoptive mother was the secretary of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

Initially harbouring ambitions to be an actress, she decided to concentrate on writing after encouragement by Alasdair Gray. She studied English at the University of Stirling and her first book of poetry, the partially autobiographical The Adoption Papers, was published in 1991, and won the Saltire Society Scottish First Book Award. Her other awards include the 1994 Somerset Maugham Award for Other Lovers, and the Guardian Fiction Prize for Trumpet, based on the life of American jazz musician Billy Tipton, born Dorothy Tipton, who lived as a man for the last fifty years of her life.

Kay writes extensively stage, screen, and for children. In 2010 she published Red Dust Road, an account of her search for her birth parents, a white Scottish woman, and a Nigerian man. Her birth parents met when her father was a student at Aberdeen University and her mother was a nurse. Her drama The Lamplighter is an exploration of the Atlantic slave trade. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in March 2007 and published in poem form in 2008.

Jackie Kay became a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) on 17 June 2006. She is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. Kay lives in Manchester.



Jackie Kay was born and brought up in Scotland. THE ADOPTION PAPERS (Bloodaxe, 1991) won the Forward Prize, a Saltire prize and a Scottish Arts Council Prize. DARLING was a poetry book society choice. FIERE, her most recent collection of poems was shortlisted for the COSTA award. Her novel TRUMPET won the Guardian Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the IMPAC award. RED DUST ROAD, (Picador) won the Scottish Book of the Year Award, was shortlisted for the JR ACKERLEY prize and the LONDON BOOK AWARD. She was awarded an MBE in 2006, and made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002. Her book of stories WISH I WAS HERE won the Decibel British Book Award.
She also writes for children and her book RED CHERRY RED (Bloomsbury) won the CLYPE award. She has written extensively for stage and television. Her play MANCHESTER LINES produced by Manchester Library Theatre was on this year in Manchester. Her new book of short stories REALITY, REALITY was recently published by Picador. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.

Reviews

[Gem K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful stuff

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to see Jackie Kay read from this collection. It is so richly evocative of a Scottish activist life, and of grief, and of the music that has shaped us.
It is also brilliant to read. The language and imagery mean I keep going back to it.

[krishna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won't get back the tears I cried but the perspective gained is with me for life :'). Also she said I had nice eyebrows (love her!!)

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of poems reflecting on love, activism, family and grief. I've been lucky enough to hear Jackie Kay read a few of these at events and reading them myself, I can almost hear her voice
and see her smile in my head.

[lesley banks · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful gift.

[Ruby Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read some of Jackie Kay’s poetry (The Adoption Papers) in a university class, and I was lucky enough to see her speak at Hay Festival in 2024, so I really wanted to read this collection. I got a copy for Christmas so I decided to have it as my first read of 2025.

I read this collection in one sitting, and it was very immersive. Jackie Kay focuses on many themes such as grief, race, sexuality, politics, activism, family, music, and identity. Scotland is a real presence throughout the poems and she writes in Scots too.

There were 13 poems I tabbed as ones that particularly stood out to me. A lot of them were focused on grief, and they really resonated with me. I am so glad to still have my mum, but I lost my grandmother in 2024. A lot of these poems really made me think about my own grief and consider how my mum must feel after losing her own mum.

Some of my favourites:
My Mum is a Robin
Blue Boat Mother
A Life in Protest
Fanny Eaton, the Jamaican Pre-Raphaelite Muse

This is a hard hitting collection and I’m glad to have read it. With poetry in general, it is best to hear it, so I really recommend looking up videos of Jackie Kay reading her own poems online because it is very impactful.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

May Day is a traditional celebration for the first day of May, but it’s also a distress signal – as the megaphone and stark font on the cover reflect. Aptly, there are joyful verses as well as calls to arms here. Kay devotes poems to several of her role models, such as Harry Belafonte, Paul Robeson, Peggy Seeger and Nina Simone. But the real heroes of the book are her late parents, who were very politically active, standing up for workers’ rights and socialist values. Kay followed in their footsteps as a staunch attendee of protests. Her mother’s death during the Covid pandemic looms large. There is a touching triptych set on Mother’s Day in three consecutive years; even though her mum is gone for the last two, Kay still talks to her. Certain birds and songs will always remind her of her mum, and “Grief as Protest” links past and future. The bereavement theme resonated with me, but much of the rest made no mark (especially not the poems in dialect) and I don’t find much to admire poetically. I love Kay’s memoir, which has been among our most popular book club reads so far, but I’ve not particularly warmed to her poetry despite having read four collections now.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Helen Cairns · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Jackie Kay both her prose and her poetry. This small volume of poems centres around her late parents and is beautifully written. The poems, some written in Scots others in English are very moving.

[Nicholas Cairns · Rating 5 out of 5]

An electric collection of poetry. Rousing and moving in equal measure.

[Colin Murtagh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't read poetry the way I do novels. I can only read a few at a time, before I need to put it down. This is more true where the poems evoke a strong emotional reaction.
There's two main themes here, first of all is the political poems. Dealing with protest and politics, there's a lot of anger and frustration in there, but there's also an acknowledgement she has a voice, and that she has to speak out. Some of it will depend on how your politics aligns with hers to see how hard it hits you.
The other side, and this is what hits, deals with grief. Having lost both her parents, a lot of emotion just flows onto the page. She was raised in an actively political but deeply loving household, so there's memories of marches and protests with her parents. But it's the void after they are gone. The letters to her mother for mothers day after she's gone. What her life is like not having her parents their for her.
The emotion, the grief is there, and perhaps it's too close to home for me, but I had to so many times put the book down, as it was just too raw to deal with.
It's passionate, emotional, and for a collection that deals so much with grief, it's uplifting and hopeful. It's honestly just what poetry should be.

[Maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

An incredibly moving collection. The personal, the political and how the two are entwined throughout Kay's life. The poems that deal with her grief and love for her parents were so beautifully crafted, capturing the layers of grief so poignantly while retaining the feeling of those raw emotions. There is so much love and community in these poems, united by protests, family, friends, music, and identity. It was at times jubilant and then heartbreaking, the title being both an SOS signal and a day of celebration. These poems have so much character and depth and I would really like to hear Kay read them now that I've seen the words on the page.

Some of my favourites:
- Fanny Eaton, the Jamaican Pre-Raphaelite Muse!
- Nina Simone at Ronnie Scott's, 1983
- Blue Boat Mother
- Three Little Birds
- Phantom

[Damian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jackie Kay is an icon and rightly so. Her love of words, and her love of humanity, spring to life in these seemingly simple poems. I've been reading them out loud for sheer pleasure every morning this week and they make a great start to the day.

The theme, ostensibly, is protest--hence May Day, the day for workers to unite and march. And that is here in works such as Flag Up Scotland, Jamaica, May Day and Life In Protest. But it is also about grief-losing her beloved parents who raised her in an activist household and in the belief that her voice could make a difference. These themes unite in the poem Grief As Protest.

Through this collection grief and anger sit by side and build to a belief in the ability of humans to make better, kinder choices. It is ultimately uplifting.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything she writes is perfection, and this celebration of her parents is the icing on the cake. There is so much love in her loss and remembrance that I had big fat tears on my face. It’s a beautiful collection and a beautiful tribute to her parents and their strongly held political beliefs that they passed to their children and friends.

[Ruth Brumby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read poems recently which use visual image and metaphor, it was interesting to read ones based so much on human voices and the sound of words. These are also about people together rather than abut being alone.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jackie's words always touch me - but this collection reflecting on grieving her parents and memories of the wee things that made them, them, completely spoke to my heart and my own experience. Beautiful

[Nicky Crabb · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful series of elegies to her activist parents - there is loss and joy all mixed together with Kay’s skillful way of saying so much in a few words. I saw her in conversation recently with Ali Smith - and they were both brilliant!

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could read Jackie Kay speaking about her family and politics, and how the two intertwine, all day.

[ciara · Rating 4 out of 5]

so moving

[David Kenvyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful tribute to Helen and John Kay, her adoptive parents. It is passionate, politically committed and deeply loving, It is inspirational

[Arlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful, uplifting collection of poems reflecting on grief/love (and how intertwined they are), activism and hope. Blue Boat Mother was especially moving. Exactly what I needed.

[Andrés Ordorica · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning exploration of grief and memory. Kay has never wavered in synthesising such weighted and heavy emotions with generosity and deft lyricism.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 book and audible
I saw Jackie live who was excellent. I have always enjoyed her poetry and this book is no exception. I recommend both book and audible

[Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s poetry and it’s life and she was a dynamo on stage talking with Lemn Sissay as well as reading. All emotions here: love it!

[ayah]

Im so sorry for all the time ive lost

[Fatou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful, moving stuff.