Poets launch new collections

The talents of current and past University writers in residence were celebrated at a recent event at Dundee Rep, with the launch of new collections by poets Colette Bryce, and Kathleen Jamie.

Colette, current writer in residence, completed her latest collection 'The Full Indian Rope Trick' during her fellowship at the University. Earlier this year she was awarded first prize in the National Poetry Competition for the title poem. This is her second book of poetry, which has been published by Picador, as has Kathleen Jamie's 'The Tree House'.

Kathleen, a previous University writer in residence, read from her book 'The Tree House' which has just scooped the £10,000 Best Collection award at the 2004 Forward Poetry Awards. The book is also short-listed for the TS Elliott prize to be announced later this year.

left: Kathleen, left and Colette at the Rep.

The Full Indian Rope Trick
Colette Bryce
ISBN 0330 435973

Colette's second poetry collection sees a leap forward in confidence and range, with her dark lyric and darker wit finding many different voices.

Whatever subject the poet takes - an Ulster childhood and the child's growing awareness of her divided community, the surreal life of the natural world, or the more disturbing shadows thrown by our love and desire - it is always addressed with both a compelling emotional candour and an astonishingly musical intelligence.

Poetry box

by Colette Bryce

+
by Colette Bryce

Through the cabin window's haze 
we watch the black shadow of our plane 
free itself from the undercarriage, 
separate, then fall away.

With it falls the sunlit runway, 
grids of crops and reservoirs, then all 
the scattered glitter of a city 
falls, the tattered coastline of a country

plunges out of view. 
And just when you might expect to see 
the globe in brilliant clarity, 
cloud fills the tiny screen

and we, who haven't taken off 
at all, wait, seatbelts on, 
for the world to turn and return to us 
as it always does, sooner or later,

to fix itself to the craft again 
at a point marked with the shadow of a plane, 
pencilled now on a runway, growing 
larger under Irish rain.