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Haggards
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September 24, 2025
Haggards, is a wonderful book of herbal and ecological poems by Elizabeth Rimmer, who was the 2016 Makar for the Federation of Writers (Scotland); a position equivalent to the United States Poet Laureate sponsored by the Library of Congress. I enjoyed reading this wise and insightful book of poems divided into three sections: Wild-Crafted, Materia Medica, and The Wren in the Ash Tree.
When I was planning a trip to Edinburgh I reached out to a Scottish herbalist I'd met at the Midwest Womens Herbal Conference, to ask if she knew any poets in Edinburgh. She connected me with Elizabeth, to my delight she agreed to met for lunch. I was heartened by such a warm reception by a poet who is seeped in the wise woman herbal tradition and writes about plants. Reading her book was such a gift, and an inspiration for my own writing.
The middle section of the book, Materia Medica, introduces the common herbs that thrive in the haggards, a word she defines in a note at the back of the book: "The word haggard is derived from the OE 'haeg-geard 'hay-yard'; but later meant a patch of land too small for cultivation where Irish peasants were allowed to grow crops for themselves. It is still used to indicate a patch of land left to run wild." In her poem "A Charm of Nine Haggard Herbs" she names nine common healing herbs found in the haggards: elder, hawthorn, yarrow, clover, comfrey, dandelion, wild rose, plantain, and bramble (blackberry). The rest of the chapter is filled with sublime poems each for an individual plant that is accessible to all.
She is a wise woman who has a deep knowledge and a wealth of wisdom about plants and herbs, history and grief. I was moved and warmed by her personal poems, and by her series of Canto poems in the final section. Having visited Scotland, meeting her, then reading her book, I am warmly infused with meaning and motivation. Social justice is a theme implied in the title of this book, the last sentence in her note on haggards is, "The hedge schools of Penal times were held in such places." When Ireland was colonized schools were only allowed for the Anglican faith under their Penal laws, but the Catholics and Presbiterians continued their primal education underground.
Susan Richardson writes in her blurb, "Whether crafting an intimate, pithy poem about a pebble or tackling an ambitious sequence on social and ecological collapse, Elizabeth Rimmer writes in language that's all at once sensouous, precise, and elegant." A must read.
When I was planning a trip to Edinburgh I reached out to a Scottish herbalist I'd met at the Midwest Womens Herbal Conference, to ask if she knew any poets in Edinburgh. She connected me with Elizabeth, to my delight she agreed to met for lunch. I was heartened by such a warm reception by a poet who is seeped in the wise woman herbal tradition and writes about plants. Reading her book was such a gift, and an inspiration for my own writing.
The middle section of the book, Materia Medica, introduces the common herbs that thrive in the haggards, a word she defines in a note at the back of the book: "The word haggard is derived from the OE 'haeg-geard 'hay-yard'; but later meant a patch of land too small for cultivation where Irish peasants were allowed to grow crops for themselves. It is still used to indicate a patch of land left to run wild." In her poem "A Charm of Nine Haggard Herbs" she names nine common healing herbs found in the haggards: elder, hawthorn, yarrow, clover, comfrey, dandelion, wild rose, plantain, and bramble (blackberry). The rest of the chapter is filled with sublime poems each for an individual plant that is accessible to all.
She is a wise woman who has a deep knowledge and a wealth of wisdom about plants and herbs, history and grief. I was moved and warmed by her personal poems, and by her series of Canto poems in the final section. Having visited Scotland, meeting her, then reading her book, I am warmly infused with meaning and motivation. Social justice is a theme implied in the title of this book, the last sentence in her note on haggards is, "The hedge schools of Penal times were held in such places." When Ireland was colonized schools were only allowed for the Anglican faith under their Penal laws, but the Catholics and Presbiterians continued their primal education underground.
Susan Richardson writes in her blurb, "Whether crafting an intimate, pithy poem about a pebble or tackling an ambitious sequence on social and ecological collapse, Elizabeth Rimmer writes in language that's all at once sensouous, precise, and elegant." A must read.
Displaying 1 of 1 review