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In My Father's House

David Kinloch

Cover Picture of In My Father's House
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Categories: 21st Century, Scottish
Imprint: Carcanet Poetry
Publisher: Carcanet Press
Available as:
Paperback (128 pages)
(Pub. Sep 2005)
9781857547665
£9.95 £8.96
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  •   But Dad said 'Monsters do not change
    their spots.' How did he know?
    Oh he did, just did, just did.
        from 'Loch Morar'

    From a quick-tempered singing grandmother to a performance of The Mikado in an African village: David Kinloch's exploration of his relationship with his father is both unexpected and affectionate. An extended sequence of poems moves from personal memory to reflections on the values embodied in such cultural father-figures as the explorer David Livingstone and the Irish patriot Roger Casement. Translations of poems by Paul Celan and others into vivid Scots weave through the sequence, illuminating the disturbing connections between patriarchy and twentieth-century violence. In contrast, moving and humorous 'dissections' of adult relationships evoke images of the body both scientific and spiritual, culminating in a long narrative poem that celebrates the loving relationship between two seventeenth-century diplomats and doctors, against the background of the bustling city of Constantinople.
    Table of Contents

    In My Father's House

    I Set Off Upon my Journey to the House of Shaws

    Loch Morar

    Avalon

    Ralph

    I Presume

    A Cardross Callas

    Pagliacci

    Tremmlin Tree

    The Cure

    'Ye caun traistly'

    Psychomachia

    Song

    Daithfugue

    Thresholds

    The Earth Dies Too

    Roger Casement's Beard

    Tenebrae

    La Tour de Ganne

    Pictures at an Exhibition

    An Encounter

    Dancing in the Archives

    'A dunnerin: it is'

    Ghost Seed

    'In waters nor o thi future'

    Painting by Numbers

    4 Shifts

    'The skyrin'

    Remission

    Lazarus

    Assisi

    Belonging

    'Because ye fund the trauchleskelf'

    Inquisition

    Impressions of Africa

    Tae Rimbaud

    A Walk

    'Knock thi'



    Baines His Dissection

    DAVID KINLOCH is from Glasgow where he grew up and was educated. He is the author of six collections of poetry, most published by Carcanet Press, the latest being In Search of Dustie-Fute (2017) which was shortlisted for the Saltire Prize. He has degrees in French and English from the Universities ... read more
    Awards won by David Kinloch Winner, 2022 Cholmondeley Award (Society of Authors) Short-listed, 2017 Saltire Society Poetry Book of the Year Award (In Search of Dustie-Fute) Commended, 2011 The Scotsman's Book of the Year (Finger of a Frenchman) Winner, 2004 Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Award
    'A sparkling collection: full of sensuous richness and linguistic inventiveness. As the punning title of the book might suggest, there is much about fathers and sons, including the moving simplicity of a walk with a dead father 'and then/I let him go,/but this moment/which is far the hardest pain/remains'. But Kinloch unrolls a convincing set of unexpected scenarios: outspoken excerpts from Roger Casement's diaries intercut with the horrors of the Belgian oppression in Africa; tightly drawn translations of Celan into Scots; and a most impressive long poem,  'Baines His Dissection', where a medical man is seen embalming the body  of his friend and lover, against the background of a brilliantly evoked  Middle East of the seventeenth century.'
    Edwin Morgan
    Praise for David Kinloch 'As others have noted, this is a poet who can be tender, playful, sarcastic... This is a poet who lives in art and the world and moves between difficult realms as easily as the pedlar, troubadour, 'dustie-fute' who is the presiding spirit of his work.'
    Kathleen McPhilemy, The High Window
    'Greengown: New and Selected Poems is a landmark book for David Kinloch. He was probably the first gay poet in the UK to address the AIDS crisis as it was happening, with a style that alternated crystal-clear lyric poems with rich prose poetry. His body of work is recognised for its humour, historic resonance and humanity.'
    Richard Price, The Poetry Society


    'His work exemplifies a particularly queer style. I mean that in every sense. It is unflinching in talking about gay life and experience, but it is also askance, unsettling, always either swerving or tripping the reader. It is, as well, quair, as in the old Scots for a book. It is a bookish book. If anyone deserves to be considered the heir to Edwin Morgan, I would suggest it be Kinloch.'
    Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman
     'David Kinloch is one of the most innovative poets ever to come out of Scotland... his readers must be prepared to take a long voyage through language, imagination and space.'
    Douglas Messerli, Hyperallergic
     'Skill and vitality make this handsome publication a true and tender elegy for pleasures shared and love recalled.'
    Herald Scotland
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