Darling: New & Selected Poems

by Jackie Kay

Humor, gender, sexuality, sensuality, identity, racism, cultural when do any of these things ever come together to equal poetry? When Jackie Kay is part of the equation. Darling brings together into a vibrant new book many favorite poems from her four Bloodaxe collections, The Adoption Papers, Other Lovers, Off Colour and Life Mask, as well as featuring new work, some previously uncollected poems, and some lively poetry for younger readers. ""Her grand, embracing spirit should be better known in the U.S."" Booklist

Genres: Poetry, LGBT, Scotland, Queer

240 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2007

About the author

Born in Glasgow in 1961 to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father, Kay was adopted by a white couple, Helen and John Kay, as a baby. Brought up in Bishopbriggs, a Glasgow suburb, she has an older adopted brother, Maxwell as well as siblings by her adoptive parents.

Kay's adoptive father worked full-time for the Communist Party and stood for election as a Member of Parliament, and her adoptive mother was the secretary of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

Initially harbouring ambitions to be an actress, she decided to concentrate on writing after encouragement by Alasdair Gray. She studied English at the University of Stirling and her first book of poetry, the partially autobiographical The Adoption Papers, was published in 1991, and won the Saltire Society Scottish First Book Award. Her other awards include the 1994 Somerset Maugham Award for Other Lovers, and the Guardian Fiction Prize for Trumpet, based on the life of American jazz musician Billy Tipton, born Dorothy Tipton, who lived as a man for the last fifty years of her life.

Kay writes extensively stage, screen, and for children. In 2010 she published Red Dust Road, an account of her search for her birth parents, a white Scottish woman, and a Nigerian man. Her birth parents met when her father was a student at Aberdeen University and her mother was a nurse. Her drama The Lamplighter is an exploration of the Atlantic slave trade. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in March 2007 and published in poem form in 2008.

Jackie Kay became a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) on 17 June 2006. She is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. Kay lives in Manchester.



Jackie Kay was born and brought up in Scotland. THE ADOPTION PAPERS (Bloodaxe, 1991) won the Forward Prize, a Saltire prize and a Scottish Arts Council Prize. DARLING was a poetry book society choice. FIERE, her most recent collection of poems was shortlisted for the COSTA award. Her novel TRUMPET won the Guardian Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the IMPAC award. RED DUST ROAD, (Picador) won the Scottish Book of the Year Award, was shortlisted for the JR ACKERLEY prize and the LONDON BOOK AWARD. She was awarded an MBE in 2006, and made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002. Her book of stories WISH I WAS HERE won the Decibel British Book Award.
She also writes for children and her book RED CHERRY RED (Bloomsbury) won the CLYPE award. She has written extensively for stage and television. Her play MANCHESTER LINES produced by Manchester Library Theatre was on this year in Manchester. Her new book of short stories REALITY, REALITY was recently published by Picador. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.

Reviews

[pauline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some were good, most were boring

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

that was wonderful

[Julie Sutherland · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title poem, Darling, is one of the best poems I've ever read.

[busyshrimp · Rating 5 out of 5]

made me cry.

[Emilie Desassis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful collection that brings together a variety of voices and emotions.

[David]

Sometimes I just find someone whose writing I want to inhale. Interestingly enough (to me anyway), two of the writers I feel most strongly about in this way are lesbians (Jeanette Winterson & Ali Smith), though their descriptions of childhood, adult orientation in a community, etc., strike me (as Margaret Atwood once wrote) as "homeground, foreign territory." It's not "me" but I feel great kinship with it. I can add Jackie Kay to that list now. I had previously read two poems of hers (one contained within an Ali Smith novel) and looked up Darling in consequence. It is kind of a "greatest hits" collection, representing, as is not uncommon with poets, and effort to collect together and preserve in one collection all the earlier work with which the writer remains more or less content. Multiple voices, a fine eye for detail, and (in my favourite poets anyway) the usual capacity to heartscald with strikingly uncommon frequency and familiarity. Again, though I have never been an adopted Black woman in Scotland, I feel Kay's work is home for me.

[Isla Jeffery]

The poem didn't have a basic rhyming pattern which I liked, it made it more mature to read. When reading this poem the one line which stood out to me was 'the dead don't go til you do, loved ones', I thought this was a really powerful line in the poem. This is also the most memorable part of the poem for me, I think for people who have experienced morning this is very relevant, and also for people from a religious background. The poem is very clever as it doesn't rhyme but the lines link together by the connotations between the words.

[Linda Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I we introduced to Jackie Kay’s work during the pandemic when she read poems on Twitter. She was also in her last year of being Makar, or the poet laureate of Scotland. She read her poem “Darling” at a time when I was still mourning the death of a younger brother. It provided some comfort so I twitted back a thank you which she responded to. This selection is a broad view of her work that reflects her country, her race, family and loves.

[TK · Rating 4 out of 5]

What odd traits have been passed down? Background?
Christ! I come from a long line of sufferers.
We lived with live-in disease-ridden beasts.
We caught rabies, had babies, passed madness down.
We clenched our crossed teeth.

[l · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly not my thing. Love her though.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourites :
Dance of the cherry blossom
Race, racist,racism
Clay
Somebody else
Mirror mirror
Rubber

[Caley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a beautiful collection

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, beautiful poems. It's a fantastic collection from one of Scotland's best poets.

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of poems is beautiful from start to finish. Her work inspired by her own adoption in particular is so moving. Each voice within that story is so striking. The way she covers race and sexuality is so open but also delicate. She writes about current affairs excellently too, without it ever seeming like a gimmick. Overall, a very diverse collection of poetry - definitely something in it for everyone.

[Graeme · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far, this book is addling my brain. I'm not entirely sure I like its form -- I don't really think of it as particularly poetic so far. It's kind of interlaced short story considering Jackie Kay's birth mother and her adoptive mother, and Jackie herself as she as an adult tried to find the former.

But so far there's no doubting that it's very poignant. Being that I'm soppy, slightly broody and stuck with a near-useless set of seminiferous tubules I was in a bit of a state trying to read on a packed London Overground this morning. But we'll see whether the form and content prove too much in the end. Or whether I manage to finish it off before Hackney public libraries ask for their book back.

...

Okay.

I finished the book. I started out not being sure about it, and then as I stuck with it, I found I liked it more. A lot of it feels slightly more like poetic anecdotes than straight-up poetry, mind you, but that's cool. A lot of very personal recollections about falling in love and losing the love of your life. Especially good bits about having to share a flat with someone incredibly significant in your life after breaking up, and having to endure the pain of knowing about their new relationship.

Also, she's pretty good at writing about significant current affairs -- one about Joy Gardner, a Jamaican immigrant who died during an Immigration service raid was particularly poignant, as was her poem about the closure of libraries. Considering it was written 20-odd years ago, it did touch a nerve.

Unmissable was her poems about the Broons, which I took to be about the Glaswegian family from the comics of the same name. There's a beautiful one in which Pa Broon, inspired by Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, demands oral sex from Ma Broon.

She's actually doing a talk about children's poetry this summer, somewhere nearby, so I'll see if I can check her out.

And actually, my tubules are okay. Sorry to them and my vas deferens for being so disrespectful.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still dipping in and out of this, loving the familiar as well as the new.

[Yolanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just love this collection - it is so diverse - I wish I could write poems like Jackie. I have read the Adoption Papers before but never tire of them.

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, it's poetry! I'll tell you my favourite from it soon.