Hamish Whyte runs the award-winning Mariscat Press. This is his second HappenStance pamphlet, the first being Hannah, Are You Listening? (now sold out). No fan of extreme sports or high rhetoric, this poet likes to sit in a garden, keep an eye on the visiting birds, and reflect. In such a context, his poems sidle up — without fuss, but with their own particular voice — forthright, unapologetic, entirely themselves and of the moment.
Here is one that arrived in the wake of storm Imogen:
8 February, 2016
Nothing is not giving messages.
—Edwin Morgan
Suddenly after the dreich of Imogen
the sun hits the shed door
the damp wood lights up
the drops of rain on the rose branch
are crystal, the fuchsia leaves
are greener, the blackbird’s beak
brighter yellow.
What are they telling us?