Portrait

By Tracy Patrick

'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

'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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: earth love press
• Release date: Mar 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781739704414

Book preview

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

[e-mail]

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