Read Raw Ltd - Promoting Creative Writing in Scotland

Read Raw Ltd

Promoting Creative Writing in Scotland

Jim Carruth

Jim Carruth was born in Johnstone in 1963 and grew up on his family’s farm near Kilbarchan. His poems have been widely published and anthologised and his debut collection “Bovine Pastoral” was runner up in the Calum Macdonald Memorial award. He is a powerful reader of his own work.

He is one of the founders and current chair of St Mungo’s Mirrorball the Glasgow network of poets and poetry lovers and is a committee member of StAnza Scotland’s national poetry festival.

“Carruth is an unusual Scottish voice and, consequently a very distinctive one, a direct and clear poetic voice that is able without compromising his huge technical ability, to reach out and engage those who rarely, if ever read poetry”
The Herald

“His poems give voice with subtlety and compassion to the silent decline of dairy farming”
The Scotsman

“Jim Carruth is Scotland’s leading rural poet, an activist and farmer whose poems are moving testaments to a fragile way of life.”
Glastonbury Festival

Publications

Cowpit Yowe

Baxter’s old ram sang the blues

High Auchensale

Bovine Pastoral

Ł6 each including postage and packaging

All cheques should be made out to Jim Carruth and sent to:-

Ludovic Press
Heathfield
Horsewood Road
Bridge of Weir
Renfrewshire

Website:- http://www.jimcarruth.co.uk

Poems

The Big Mistake

the shepherd on the train told me

is to clip hill milking ewes too soon.

I put my newspaper down;

he'd got my attention.

Nothing puts the milk off them quicker

than just a day like last Wednesday.

And when it goes off at this time of year,

it never comes back .

His warning continues

They never get so rough in the backend,

and have less protection

against the storms and winter chill.

He glances up,

checks his crook in the luggage rack

And another thing

is that the wool neither weighs so heavy

nor looks so well. It's the new growth

that brings down the scales.

A fleece from a ewe that's near

hasn't the same feel as one from a ewe

that has plenty of rise and a good strong stoan.

In the beginning of July the new wool on a thin ewe

will grow more in one week under the fleece

than it will do in three with the fleece clipped off.

He summarised his argument for me

Experienced flock masters never clip hill stocks

before the second week of July.

In terms of the sheep's sufferings

a strong sun is little less severe than a cold rain.

He stopped there

looked out the window at the passing fields

then fell asleep to Waverley

content that a stranger in a suit

had listened to his wisdom;

this wisdom I now share with you.

(from the collection - Cowpit Yowe)

Conversing with angels

Recently you’ve glimpsed them more often
as you drive quiet roads to your son’s farm
through the black mornings before dawn.

Your headlamps launch these night guardians
from flashes of eyes and ruffled feathers
into silent prophets of white-winged flight.

Last night you stood on the cottage doorstep
at the boundary where village becomes field
offered up a wordless invocation to the stars.

A messenger high up in the old bell tower
delivered an answer: unearthly and hoarse
as many have done throughout your life.

You replied and another one joined in
echoing from a small congregation of oak
and a third spoke up from beyond the river.

Today you recount to me those conversations:
a voice reaffirming its connection to the unseen;
and a faith that calls out confident of response.

(from the collection - High Auchensale)

Herd

A single dog is sent away by.
Mothers a day’s warmth in their bodies,
rise reluctant from nests of flattened grass;
barge hard squeeze, through to the narrow lane.

Ignoring collie and stick,
stiff legged stragglers stop,
Cough slurpy green splatters at my feet.
Steam rise, tail strands dab runes

Where eager flies blacken scab and wound.

The herd waddles on tender hooves
between hedges of hawthorn;

vein ridged udders swing milk-heavy;

cracked teats drip to cooling tar.

Bodies of coarse hair, stones on a river bed,

bump and rumble in the gentle flow of their lowing

The sun dawdles a slow decline.

Light stretches a blessing across their backs;

draws me into the undertow

that’s pulling us all back home.

(from the collection - Bovine Pastoral)