Madame Fi Fi's farewell : and other poems / Gerry Cambridge.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cambridge, Gerry, 1959-

Language:

English

Physical Description:

127 pages ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Luath Press, 2003.

Summary:

Gerry Cambridge's generosity of spirit and wry sense of humour shine through in this, his third full collection of poetry. Madame Fi Fi's Farewell opens with some lively, affecting poems of love and relationships in a variety of voices: an old man wistfully regrets lost opportunities; Madame Fi Fi decides it is time, somewhat ruefully, to hang up her whip; a lovelorn woman speaks of her unsatisfactory night with a youth from Aruba; and, 'In the Supermarket', a man and a woman encounter one another after a gap of twenty years. The book also includes poems rooted in the specific soils of Ayrshire and Orkney, where old country characters, primary schoolchildren, and exasperated bus drivers make their voices heard. This is a book of poems to read and re-read, quietly to yourself or -- as good poetry of any age deserves -- out loud.

Contents:

1% 15

The Absence of Letters 16

The Dark Gift 17

Praying Mantis 18

From Spain 19

Body Song 20

A Gift 21

Adolescent Bodybuilders 22

Ditty 23

The First 24

Obsession 25

Elegy 26

The Queen of the Night 28

Epigram 29

Lady's Smock 30

Blood Root 32

In the Supermarket 33

A Whitmanian Reply 34

Song 36

Old Man in the Department Store 37

On a Young Librarian 38

Lines to Another Emily 39

Valentine Note 40

Postscript to Love 41

Madame Fi Fi's Farewell 42

Bus Journey in Snow 47

A Winter Morning 48

Water 49

From Cunninghamhead 50

Wasp at a Skylight Window 51

The Day's Response 52

Gale 54

Singing Bird 55

Island Letter 56

Duck Shooters 62

Old Countryman 64

This Morning 66

A Fire in Winter 67

Canticles for a Little Book 68

Letter to Timothy Murphy 72

A Note on Roy Campbell's 'Autumn' 75

Brownsbank Poems 76

i. October

ii December

iii. Beside the A702

iv. 8 a.m.

v. December Night

vi. Near Christmas

vii. Solstice

Tale of a Cat 80

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Edwin Morgan 84

Glasgow Vignettes 88

Candles 90

The Minister of Air 92

The Thought of Snow 93

Frost 94

The Holder-out 99

Two Walks on Arthur's Seat 100

Prism 109

From: SpeyGrian Venture 110

From: A Day at Lawthorn Primary 114

Vision 118

The News of Swans 119.

ISBN:

1842820052

OCLC:

52057062