As Kathleen Jamie – essayist, editor, and Makar (National Poet for Scotland) – reached her 60th year, she turned to a new form of writing: one of personal notes, prose poems, micro-essays, and fragments.
In her latest book, Cairn, they are arranged together like the stones of a wayside cairn (defined as ‘a marker on open land, a memorial, a viewpoint shared by strangers’), marking changes to an inner and outer landscape. It is an affecting meditation on nature, growing old, childhood, and the future faced by the next generation as the climate crisis worsens.
Cairn is published at a time when you have reached the milestone of turning 60, and you’re approaching the end of your time as Makar. Was it important for you to mark these events?
I guess I began about two or three years ago, maybe more. I’m 62 now. Turning 60 was, I wouldn’t say preying on my mind, but I was more aware of it than when I turned 30, or possibly 40 or 50. There’s definitely more life behind me than ahead, and my kids are now adults. I could feel myself handing the future on to their generation. And it did feel like a milestone; that’s what we say, isn’t it?
There was a definite change in the air. I suppose there were a lot of things going on: my dad had not long died, there was a pandemic, I quit my job, and just a lot of change.
Do you think the style of Cairn is quite different from your previous works? Was that done deliberately, or something that came as you started writing?
It is different from previous works, but it evolved, as I’d always written poetry. I’d never written short prose and in this book they collapsed together, coalesced together in a hybrid. There’s lots of short pieces, which will look like non-fiction, but they are styled as poems as well. I don’t actually have a word for them, but I call some of them ‘micro essays’.
Some of them are more like prose poems, and they are definitely of a shorter duration than my essays. I can see the relationship, and I think it was almost inevitable that this hybridisation would happen.
Whenever I start a new project I need to find a form to carry it, and working with these shorter forms enabled me to write Cairn, but first of all you’ve got to go through a couple of years of learning and seeking out a new form.
Did you find that easier to write than a long-form essay?
I didn’t have much opportunity over those years to write long form essays. During COVID we couldn’t go anywhere, and a lot of my essays come from trips to places, so that was out the window. And was it easy? Learning something is never easy, but I do enjoy it. Ideally it should look easy, like an ice-skater –but learning how to do it, and also learning it was worth doing, took a wee while.
How are you feeling about finishing as Makar this summer?
I enjoyed it, and it’s also time to move on and let somebody else do it. So, yes, it’s just about the right duration for me.
What do you think you’ll be remembered for during your time as Makar? Do you think there’s one particular thing, or do you leave behind a legacy?
Three years isn’t a long time to create a legacy, but I don’t know, it’s not for me to say. If I could, I’d leave a sense of it having been a valuable cultural resource, and continuing to be a valuable cultural resource, so that when a new Makar is appointed there’s no question about whether we should have one or not.
It has a lot of reach, and it keeps poetry central to the culture. At a time when all arts funding is in crisis, I would like the sense of value around it to be my legacy.
Much of Cairn focuses on ageing, the future of the younger generation and that of your children. Do you still have hope about the future?
Well, we’re entering into very difficult times, and I think it’s a matter of navigate. Don’t panic, navigate. I have great faith in the human spirit to understand what we’re facing, and how to get through it. I fully believe we’re going into a bottleneck which will be very, very difficult, and God knows how long it’ll last. I would like to see us emerging from it, but I certainly think that’s going to happen. But navigate we must.
So no, I wouldn’t say I was without hope. Anyway, it’s such an appalling thing to do to the younger generation, and shrug and say ‘it’s all hopeless’. Morally you can’t do that.
Cairn by Kathleen Jamie is available now, published by Sort of Books. Available here.