Killochries

by Jim Carruth

A stunning verse novella, tracking the relationship of two very different men working a remote sheep farm over the course of 12 months

A young man is sent to work on at Killochries, a sheep farm belonging to a relative, after burning out in the city. He is appalled by the absence of his previous life’s essentials, by the remote strangeness of this new world. The old farmer has never left the hills; has farmed them all his life. He doesn’t care for the troubles of the modern world, trusting only in God., and greets the incomer with taciturn indifference. As the winter breaks, so does their silence, drawing them closer through tragedy and miracles. The young man discovers that what he thought uncouth, primitive, has a language and a depth that all the knowledge of modern world could not prepare him for. Despite being Scotland’s leading rural poet, and Glasgow’s official Makar (or Poet Laureate), and having won a clutch of poetry awards, this is Jim Carruth’s first formal collection. An innovative poetry novel, Killochries is a major achievement from one of Scotland’s most important and influential voices.

Genres: Poetry, Scotland

144 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2015

About the author

Jim Carruth (b.1963) is poet laureate of Glasgow. He is the founder and chair of St. Mungo's Mirrorball, the Glasgow network of poets. His collection, Black Cart, the first part of the Auchensale Trilogy, was published in 2017.

Reviews

[Tracy Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in rural Renfrewshire, Killochries is a narrative poem, with all the elements of plot, conflict, character and resolution, told from the point of view of single narrator, a male whose life has crashed and burned due to alcoholism: 'I lost my licence,/my job, the flat, Linda.' As a last resort he has been sent by his mother to work with an elderly relative on his farm, a rehab of sorts. A taciturn person, when the old man speaks his language is Scots: 'The phone sits silent,/disconnected the week I came.//If onybody wants me/they ken whaur A'll be./He likes his radio/but has no TV./The outside warld/is hard enough tae listen tae.'

Killochries is more than nature poetry - it is a tale of life and death, family and old age - and, ultimately, of redemption. The book covers a year, beginning in autumn and ending in summer, a vessel for life on the farm as well as the narrator's journey, from a man lost to others and himself, to one with a sense of purpose. If this all sounds a bit self-helpy, or even too much like your classic west-of-Scotland-male identity crisis, the fodder of so much fiction, it is not. What makes this poetry book unique is the way Carruth uses nature and language to tell the story. The poems do not shout or poke at the reader, nor require mental gymnastics to get the meaning, but simply ask us to absorb, like you would a walk in the woods. Most poems are single page, comprised of short lines and verses, interweaving the life of the farm, the memories of characters and their interactions, together with short extracts from Bible verses (the old man's only book), chosen well by Carruth to underpin the age-old pastoral setting and spiritual theme. There is plenty of white space in between that offers ample breathing room, allowing the narrator to navigate these big themes with a comfortable lightness of touch.

The harshness of winter is conveyed through images of death: the remains of prey scattered by the elusive fox, the circling birds of prey, the little forest where 'the single fir resistant to the change/points to the sky, defiant.' As he watches the neighbour turn over the only field 'you can trust with a crop,' the narrator doubts his own ability to survive, 'I could be convinced/by the ease of transformation -//the turning over of the soild/burying of the old failed crop -/but for the deepening of engine tone,/the dark smoke of struggle.' Yet the old man meets harshness with compassion as he cares for his dying mother who, 'cries out/Father - help me/in a child's voice/from a bed/too big' and his old collie, 'He'll talk/one last time/to an old friend -/wrap her in/a favourite blanket/.../carry her out/beyond the barn.' One feels the alienness of the narrator, who seems to see himself in 'the profile of a single stag/.../He has not won this season's fight for family -/that need to belong.'

When spring arrives, the lambing begins and the old man becomes his teacher, not only helping him learn 'the living hill, the signs/of growth and birth' but to evaluate his own past, taking the good and leaving the bad, as when they find an old pipe that belong to the old man's father, 'He holds it close to his nose/as if he could small his father's breath-/A wis never guid enough fir him -//and throws it away into the field.' As he learns the ways of the farm, the poet finds himself 'thirsty for a new language/.../gimmer, tup and hog.' By the end of spring, the healing has begun, 'I can tell the individual/from the throng in each dawn chorus/and know it has a voice,/a place where it belongs.'

The summer section picks up on the theme of resurrection with the shedding of skin, 'Fox,/we're both/changing:/.../beneath this slow moult.' This is epitomised in the shearing of sheep, and their relationship culminates in them winning a trophy at the local show. Perhaps this would be a nice ending but the cyclical nature of life is ever present when the old man shows failing health, reflected in the tone of his prayers, 'his voice brittle://Breathless, he wheezes//thy will be done.' The message one of strength, connection, acceptance and letting go.

Killochries is a beautifully written collection, poetry in its most elemental form, meditative and honest. I found it restorative, worth going back to, especially in this post-pandemic world with the curve balls of climate change and AI on the way.

[Blair H. Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing book/poetry collection. In succinct, sparse verses, we follow a surprising change in a surprising relationship, over the course of a year, slender the background of agriculture, the seasons, spirituality and nature. There are many very moving epiphanies, conflicts and resolutions. I had recent lumps in my throat as I read this book. In my humble opinion, it’s a masterpiece.

[Anika · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading this and am feeling so much I don’t quite know how to put words on it….I love the warp and weft of the new and old, of faith and disbelief, of tradition and modernity, of city and country, of human and animal, of life and death.

[Callum Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Says so much by saying so little.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A verse novel telling the tale of a burnt out young man, sent to straighten himself out on the farm of an older relative. Their tense relationship evolves slowly over the season with the turning of the farm year. With sparse verse he evokes the austere shepherd and the hard life of a struggling farm, full of all the rust, dirt and death you don't normally get in poems of the countryside.

[Samuel Mardirosian]

rather clichéd, very austere, quite beautiful

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reviewed Killochries by Jim Carruth in The Dark Horse poetry magazine issue no 35, autumn/winter 2015.