Fay Young

Category: Arts

  • Talking Turkeys: five poems for Christmas

    Talking Turkeys: five poems for Christmas

    —

    by

    fay
    in

    We closed the borders folks, we nailed itNo trees, no plants, no immigrants Extinction: Jackie Kay Update December 2024: It’s very touching to see so many new views of this old post written in 2016. It’s a tribute to the great humanity of Benjamin Zephaniah who died on Thursday 7 December 2023. His loss is…

  • Winds of change at The Botanics

    Winds of change at The Botanics

    —

    by

    fay
    in ,

    With rich irony the latest exhibition at Inverleith House is titled I Still Believe in Miracles. But no miracle is likely to save the art gallery from closure after the doors shut on a show celebrating 30 years at the heart of contemporary art in Edinburgh.

  • Red Skye at night

    Red Skye at night

    —

    by

    fay
    in

    The great giants are crumbling one by one. The Gendarme and the Cubaid are gone and the trees are sliding to the shore on Scorrybreck Morag Henriksen This is not about Brexit though goodness knows it was hard to escape the rumblings, crumblings and forebodings of separation among the unexpectedly European gathering on Skye.

  • In praise of the shipping forecast: pure poetry

    —

    by

    fay
    in ,

    The North wind doth blow though not very hard. Our windmill acts like a weathervane even when it’s not turning and it is facing resolutely north. We shall have snow.

  • Poetry breaks the silence of dementia

    —

    by

    fay
    in

    Over the Years, a poem about ageing and Alzheimer’s, stirs a sad, sweet memory but also hope. Dementia is part of family life – and loss – for so many of us now and I remember how it silenced my once sociable father. Yet Paula Jennings’ poetry, drawing on her work in a nursing home,…

  • Politics and a vote for love

    —

    by

    fay
    in

    But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. He wasn’t literally poor, of course. William Butler Yeats was born into an Anglo-Irish Protestant family at a time when the landed gentry were still in the last phase of their…

  • Poem of the week: 2 (Richard Ings)

    —

    by

    fay
    in

    Another Monday. Another Poem of the Week and by good chance  a brand new poetry book recently arrived in the post. Look out for Richard Ings.  His first collection, Occasional, is bursting with good things. Some wry, some sad, some playful, some serious, some simply beautiful.

  • Treading softly: Poem of the Week/Number One

    —

    by

    fay
    in

    Tread softly because you tread on my dreams Just over a month ago I posted a poem on Facebook for Valentines Day.  It wasn’t my poem and I had gone to no great trouble to seek it out, in fact I pinched Wendy Cope’s beautiful If We Were Never Going to Die off the front…

  • The song is older than the sorrow

    —

    by

    fay
    in , ,

    Breakfast on a wintry Edinburgh morning to the background melodies of South Uist.  I woke this morning with tunes from last night’s show dancing a jig in my head.  It’s a sign of a good performance when both the singer and the songs follow you home.

  • Memories: handle with care

    —

    by

    fay
    in

    As invited, I approach the record player in the middle of the gallery. Play a record, the artist says. I place a 7 inch single on the turntable and find myself transported to another time and place.

  • Because I can

    Because I can

    —

    by

    fay
    in ,

    If I can, anyone can. Admittedly it was with a little help from my sons Dougal and Tommy, but I have uploaded my first YouTube video, shot (in case you want to know) on my Nokia N95 when I peered through a hole in the wall enjoying the experience of seeing Scotland’s National Portrait gallery…