PICKING BRAMBLES

by Des Dillon

Women and BramblesChris McKinnellDes Dillon’s first collection, Picking Brambles (Luath Press PBK £6.99), begins with the title poem, and straight away you get the sense of a refreshing, individual style. His words are indeed like brambles - big and succulent, whether fruity or beefy. There is a certain downbeat mood too, a weight, like the words have a fist inside them (Dillon was once into kick-boxing and had a friend who was a professional boxer). You feel the heaviness in lines like ’sunshine wilting / on late September shoulders.’ Dillon’s exuberance is in his words rather than his subjects. Perhaps that is something to do with the geography of the place he’s coming from, where, he says ‘Nothing has changed these years gone by. / Only the dogs are different.’Cucuruzzu marks the beginning of an altogether different, possibly more remarkable, sequence of poems set around this small Italian town. The language slows down, becomes quiet, and now matches both subject and underlying mood. It is as if Dillon has chilled out and immersed himself in an explicitly spiritual geography. His introspection is beautifully encompassed in a poem entitled The Sorrow of The ‘I turn and looking back - oh / how many candles have I lit / from the one solitary light.’As well as poetry, Dillon has also written short stories, novels and dramas for radio, TV, stage and film, yet he considers this collection to be the pinnacle of his writing career. It is to hoped this does not prove to be so, for he is surely set to become one of our most powerful poetic voices.

79 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 26, 2010

About the author

Des Dillon was born and brought up in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, and studied English at Strathclyde University. A former teacher, he is now a poet, short story writer, novelist and dramatist writing for radio, stage, television and film. He has taught Creative Writing at the Arvon Foundation and was Writer in Residence at Castlemilk, Glasgow, between 1998 and 2000. Des now lives in Galloway with his wife and two dogs, one of whom really did walk on the ceiling during an epileptic fit.