A smile. A simple, unsought pleasure. A wondering thought that lets you wander from the daily rant and rage. A poem for today.
Thank you to the Scottish Poetry Library (SPL) for the Poem of the Moment. It is a constantly changing treat. By the time you read this the moment and the mood may well be entirely different.
But today it is Rachel McCrum’s heartlifting Glassblower Dances.
People smiled. And for a moment felt something in their chests had loosened and wondered about things that did not touch their lives.
On yet another day when headlines of old and new media hammer home the madness and mayhem of 2018 politics, here’s a chance to wonder. To let different words swirl and swell. SPL’s poem of the moment is, incidentally, the very same poem that Sceptical Scot chose for an unexpected message of cheer at the end of the seismic year of 2016. The pure pleasure of the ‘alchemy of changing dirt into something fluid, strong and beautiful’.
Rachel McCrum was a big presence in Scotland’s spoken word scene from 2012 until 2017 (she was the Broad of Rally and Broad the Edinburgh-based cabaret). She now lives and works in Montreal, Quebec, where she is the director of bilingual poetry-text-performance series, Les Cabarets Batards. But as co-founder of Stewed Rhubarb Press her presence is still felt, seen and heard.
Live performance in Edinburgh
She is back in Edinburgh on Tuesday 24 July when Stewed Rhubarb Press, publishers of the Glassblower Dances, will launch republications of work by Rachel McCrum and Harry Giles with live performances by the poets. Stewed Rhubarb: Past and Present, ‘celebrating the cutting edge of Scottish spoken word’ is at SPL and the programme includes Jenny Lindsey of Flint and Pitch and folk musician Kirsty Law. (Tickets from Eventbrite)
And all this happened because once upon a time someone though to write upon a wall with joy
You can read Glassblower Dances in full on the Scottish Poetry Library website. Or sit back now and listen as Rachel McCrum brings it to life. As the words ‘tuck themselves’ into the back of your mind, it is very difficult not to smile.
Featured image: Lines in the Sand, photographed at low tide on the Island of Canna, Inner Hebrides.
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