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Sin is Due to Open in a Room above Kitty's
Scottish poet Morag Anderson explores relationships and the damage people can do to each other in her debut chapbook: concealed violence, love and everything in between.
Morag Anderson is an emerging Scottish poet based in Highland Perthshire. The relationship between land, sea, and people influences her writing. Her poetry has appeared in Popshot Quarterly, Skylight 47, Finished Creatures, Fly on the Wall, and The Scotsman as well as several anthologies. She was shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize 2019, won Over the Edge New Poet and the Clochoderick Poetry Prize. As part of Hamish Matters, she performed at StAnza Poetry Festival 2020. She is a member of the poetry collective, Poets’ Abroad.
"Morag Anderson writes bold poems of survival charged by constraint and release. Here are lived realities of escaping abusive patriarchs and pious cruelties. Yet these honest, unsentimental poems find joy and lyricism in unexpected places: a defiant note left on a pew, a cherishing of the private 'width of my skies'. 'Pour me over ice smashed / like fallen birds' instructs one speaker to those who will bury her. Reader, drink in: this intimate, invigorating gathering is a tonic to savour." - John Mccullough, Winner of the 2020 Hawthornden Prize for Literature
"Stark, raw & devastatingly honest, these confessional poems will thunder like a night train through the darkest tunnel of your heart." - Ali Whitelock, Author of ‘the lactic acid in the calves of your despair.'
Sample Poem:
Paterfamilias
When the breadth of your back
is no more than narrative
beneath the tailored twill of your shirt,
when your fingers, gone to driftwood,
rattle and clack against the ancestral
crest of old gold,
when you cannot rise to greet
the changing seasons that slant
across your vaulted ceiling,
when cataracts cloud the clarified sky
and your intended ascension
seems less assured,
may your daughters labour with language,
give birth to books that punctuate
the end of your line.
Morag Anderson is an emerging Scottish poet based in Highland Perthshire. The relationship between land, sea, and people influences her writing. Her poetry has appeared in Popshot Quarterly, Skylight 47, Finished Creatures, Fly on the Wall, and The Scotsman as well as several anthologies. She was shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize 2019, won Over the Edge New Poet and the Clochoderick Poetry Prize. As part of Hamish Matters, she performed at StAnza Poetry Festival 2020. She is a member of the poetry collective, Poets’ Abroad.
"Morag Anderson writes bold poems of survival charged by constraint and release. Here are lived realities of escaping abusive patriarchs and pious cruelties. Yet these honest, unsentimental poems find joy and lyricism in unexpected places: a defiant note left on a pew, a cherishing of the private 'width of my skies'. 'Pour me over ice smashed / like fallen birds' instructs one speaker to those who will bury her. Reader, drink in: this intimate, invigorating gathering is a tonic to savour." - John Mccullough, Winner of the 2020 Hawthornden Prize for Literature
"Stark, raw & devastatingly honest, these confessional poems will thunder like a night train through the darkest tunnel of your heart." - Ali Whitelock, Author of ‘the lactic acid in the calves of your despair.'
Sample Poem:
Paterfamilias
When the breadth of your back
is no more than narrative
beneath the tailored twill of your shirt,
when your fingers, gone to driftwood,
rattle and clack against the ancestral
crest of old gold,
when you cannot rise to greet
the changing seasons that slant
across your vaulted ceiling,
when cataracts cloud the clarified sky
and your intended ascension
seems less assured,
may your daughters labour with language,
give birth to books that punctuate
the end of your line.
36 pages, Paperback
Published August 20, 2021
6 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 15, 2021
astounding poetry , astounding talent .
Carolyn
Carolyn
December 5, 2021
I saw Ms. Anderson read a week or so ago (via Zoom) and was enthralled with her poetry. She writes about life, and does not sugar-coat it. These poems are honest, confessional, and it is very difficult to read just one.
From Paterfamilias “may your daughters labour with language, / give birth to books that punctuate / the end of your line.” As for The Last Supper with Sarah, all I can say is, Sarah should count her blessings she’s still alive and walking.
I truly wish the book was longer. I will go back to this book time and time again.
From Paterfamilias “may your daughters labour with language, / give birth to books that punctuate / the end of your line.” As for The Last Supper with Sarah, all I can say is, Sarah should count her blessings she’s still alive and walking.
I truly wish the book was longer. I will go back to this book time and time again.
August 29, 2024
Poems that are savage, powerful and beautiful. Read them!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews