Portrait
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About this ebook
A debut collection of searingly honest poems. After being diagnosed with cardiomyopathy at aged 42, Patrick looks for a poetic language, form and expression that could help give meaning to her lifechanging experiences. The result is funny, challenging and inventive, a reckoning with mortality that captures the fear of dying, vicissitudes of change, and the sheer the joy of being alive.
'It is safe to say that there is not one dishonest sentence in this dazzling and long overdue debut collection... truthful, inventive and constantly surprising... Do read it.' A C Clarke.
'In sickness and in health, these smart, wry, confiding poems, some of them in Scots, adopt a tough but tender, often subversive stance... A very good book, that makes for very good company; to be sought out again and again. Brava!' Donny O'Rourke.
Intelligent, funny and irreverent, this is one of finest collections of poems ever made in modern Scotland... Her voice captures uniquely the fragile joy of being alive.' Dr Jim Ferguson
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Portrait - Tracy Patrick
PORTRAIT
Tracy Patrick was born in Paisley in 1972. She has won poetry slams in Glasgow and Edinburgh and has been involved with theatre and spoken word, including with the world’s oldest surviving music hall, The Britannia Panopticon. Her first poetry pamphlet, Wild Eye Fire Eye, was published in 2015, and was followed in 2019 by her debut novel, Blushing is for Sinners, which was commended by the Saltire First Book of the Year award judges, and named by the late Ruby McCann as one of The Bottle Imp’s best Scottish books of 2019.
tracypatrick.org
Also by Tracy Patrick
Novel
BLUSHING IS FOR SINNERS
Poetry Pamphlet
WILD EYE FIRE EYE
PORTRAIT
Tracy Patrick
earth love
First published in 2022 by earth love press
earthlovepoetrymagazine@yahoo.com
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © Tracy Patrick, 2022
Tracy Patrick has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781739704414 ebook
Cover painting by Louise Malone
Cover design by earth love press
Typeset by earth love press in Baskerville Old Face
Printed and bound by Imprint Academic
Seychelles Farm, Upton Pyne, Exeter, Devon, EX5 5HY
Dedicated to
The NHS doctors, nurses and staff, and the passers-by in the street without whose compassion and quick thinking I would not be here. Thank you.
CONTENTS
Clover 1
Incubator 3
A Procedure 4
Lessons of Fire 5
Crosshatching 6
Alarm Call 9
Proximations 11
Raskolnikov’s Dream 13
Rumour 14
The Beta Chart 15
Craters 17
Persuasions 18
Seventeen 21
By Proxy 22
Eryngium Alpinum 23
Driftwood 24
The Great Moon 25
Self-sufficient 26
Warhol Words 27
C:\>Fields 28
Newton Woods 31
Niches 33
Slogans of Rebellion 35
thinking 38
Divination 39
Sounding 40
MisantHrOPE 41
Another Night 42
How to be an Arsehole 43
Twin 44
Soap 46
Trouble 48
Inversion of Venus 49
Smitten 50
Everything Must Go 51
Cancellations 52
Sculpture 54
Metanoia 55
Mise-en-scène 57
The Tenth 58
60
Perhaps 61
Someone Else 62
Canned 64
The Silent Ones 65
Wolf 67
Cento Anni 69
The Gospel According to Science 71
Endings 72
Dwelling Places 73
Escapology 74
Going 75
Still Life with Apples and Pomegranate 77
La Peine avec Joie 78
Lundin Links 79
Tattoo 82
Platforms 85
Paisley Lass 87
Library Sunset 88
pauses 89
peace and noise 90
The Swimmer 91
Unaffiliated 92
Weight Loss 93
Wingtips 94
Uncovering the First Person 95
CLOVER
I wonder where
you found it, the
four-leafed clover
you gave me one
birthday, or was
it Easter – the
one you framed in
plastic from a
chocolate egg box,
or was it a
ready-meal – a
kind of clover
reliquary
which I taped to
the back of a
pocket notepad,
or was it a
diary – with a
pink-green