Scotland’s “Makar”, A Laureate’s Writing

Scotland’s “Makar”, A Laureate’s Writing

Winter (14+ hours) | This course is completed

NEW

1/11/2021-3/1/2021

12:00 PM-2:00 PM EDT on Mon

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$85.00

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Jackie Kay is Scotland’s current Poet Laureate or “Makar,” the official title. We will read three of her books over the course. Her memoir Red Dust Road, her novel Trumpet and a book of her poetry, Fiere.

Kay’s work is deeply humane and moving, full of warmth and humor. Her writing is both broad in scope and yet deeply personal—from the story of a famous Scottish Jazz trumpeter and the secret truth of his life, to Jackie’s own story of adoption, her life as a young black gay woman in a very non-racially diverse society, her search for her own birth-parents and her use of both Scots-language and Igbo, the language of her birth father, threading her poems. These are books to lift our spirits and warm our souls through the winter.

The classes will be collaborative, consisting of close reading and discussion, with biographical, cultural, geographical, and historical context provided.

  • Trumpet by Jackie Kay (ISBN-13: 978-0375704635)
  • Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay (ISBN-13: 978-1509858392)
  • Fiere by Jackie Kay (ISBN-13: 978-0330513371)
Shivas, Anne

Anne Shivas is a Scot, a poet, and a Vermont resident. She grew up in and received her BEd (Hons) in Edinburgh and her MA in Philosophy of Education in London. She lived in Jerusalem, Israel for ten years before coming to the Upper Valley. She completed an MFA in poetry at Drew University in 2011. She has taught many previous Osher classes on Scottish poetry and literature.