Jackie Kay

A Novel

Trumpet

Originally published: London: Picador, 2010.

Red Dust Road

"Known for her prodigious musical talent, her timeless blues narratives about personal and socioeconomic problems, her tough persona, and her innate ability to enrapture audiences with her raw voice, Bessie Smith--the Empress of the Blues--receives a unique biographical treatment in this special life narrative captured by one of Scotland's finest poets. By masterfully blending research, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and her own experiences in listening to Bessie Smith, Jackie Kay brings Smith to life, chronicling her humble beginnings in Tennessee to her national touring and recording success to her troubled relationships and her tragic end. The result is a lyrical tribute that not only captures Smith's personality but manages to reproduce her voice as her lyrics echo throughout the text. Bessie Smith lives on, and as Kay argues, she is relevant now more than ever"--

A Poet's Biography of a Blues Legend

Bessie Smith

Adoption Papers

Following on from her award-winning first novel, Trumpet, comes a collection of superlative stories. In true Kay style, these small masterpieces cover a great deal of emotional and narrative terrain, from an immaculate observation of the female physiognomy to the bewilderment of the elderly; from silent hidden love to a lifetime reminiscence of an immigrant's England. Warm and tender, frightening and funny, these stories confirm the arrival of a major storyteller. 'A stunner. I am heartbroken to have finished it' Ali Smith 'The beauty of Kay's stories is in how much they continue to resonate long after finishing' TIME OUT 'These pieces contain - and ultimately liberate - definitively human ordinariness, a rigmarole of isolation and love, fidelity and betrayal, noise and silence, birth and death' GUARDIAN 'One of the liveliest talents of her generation' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Why Don't You Stop Talking

My Daughter, The Fox

"Jackie Kay's The Lamplighter takes us on a journey through the dark heart of slavery. It is both an acclaimed radio and stage play and a multi-layered epic poem." "Four women and one man tell the story of the fort, the slave ship, the middle passage, the life on the plantations, the growth of the British city and the industrial revolution. The Lamplighter focuses on parts of history other books rarely touch upon, revealing the devastating human cost of slavery for individual people."--BOOK JACKET.

The Lamplighter

In Wish I Was Here, Jackie Kay explores every facet of love, the most overwhelming and complicated of human emotions. In her distinctive voice, simultaneously fierce and delicate, she exposes the moments of tenderness, shock, bravery and stupidity that accompany the search for love, the discovery of love and, most of all, loves loss. Every story here resonates with bittersweet lucidity. Fearlessly scrutinizing her characters at their moments of greatest vulnerability, Kay brings the chaotic experience of loveand of simply livinginto crystalline focus. Wish I Was Here is another work of wondrous emotional intensity and almost blinding illumination by one of our most original and engaging talents.

Wish I Was Here

Grace Nichols

Barbara Burford

Grabiela Pearse

A Dangerous Knowing marks a unique and historic moment in feminist publishing in Britain. Long overdue, this collection brings together for the first time poetry written by four British-based Black Women whose poems reflect the depth and complexity of their lives. The poets share with us not only their anger and isolation but also their hopes, joys, and sensuality.

A Dangerous Knowing

These poems explore illness, sickness and health, past and present, in a dynamic and original way. They examine not only the sick body but the sick mind and sick society, racism and prejudice. It is Jackie Kay''s third collection.'

Off Colour

Lamplighter

Life Mask

Humor, gender, sexuality, sensuality, identity, racism, cultural difference: when do any of these things ever come together to equal poetry? When Jackie Kay is part of the equation. Darling brings together into a vibrant new book many favorite poems from her four Bloodaxe collections, The Adoption Papers, Other Lovers. Off Colour and Life Mask, as well as featuring new work, some previously uncollected poems, and some lively poetry for younger readers. Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

New & Selected Poems

Darling

‘A stunner. I am heartbroken to have finished it’ Ali Smith In Jackie Kay’s first collection of stories, ordinary lives are transformed by secrets. Her world might seem familiar – sex, death and family cast long shadows – but the roles of mothers, daughters and lovers are imagined and revealed in the most surprising of ways. Sometimes it is the things that we choose to hide within ourselves which can transform us – and that has never been more true than in Jackie Kay’s warm, exuberant storytelling. She sees the extraordinary in everyday life, and lights it up with humour and generosity in a way that is uniquely her own. ‘If stories like these can still be written, the short story form must still be alive, not to say kicking’ Irish Times

Bantam brings three generations into sharp focus - Jackie Kay's own, her father's, and his own father's - in a book that shows how the body holds its own story: how a shrapnel injury from the First World War can emerge years later; how we bear and absorb the loss of others; how we celebrate and welcome new life; how we how we embody our times, whether we want to or not. The poems collected in Bantam cross borders, from Rannoch Moor to the Somme, from Brexit to Bronte country. Who are we? Who might we want to be? These are poems that sing of what connects us and lament what divides us; poems that send daylight into the dark that threatens to overwhelm us - and could not be more necessary for the times in which we live.

Bantam

James Procter

Gemma Robinson

Presents a collection of poems by black and Asian writers.

British Black & Asian Poets

Out of Bounds

This work tells the story of a black girl's adoption by a white Scottish couple. The story is told from three different viewpoints - the mother, the birth mother and the daughter.

The Adoption Papers

Following on from Jackie Kay's award-winning first novel Trumpet, comes a collection of superlative stories. In true Kay style these small masterpieces cover a great deal of emotional and narrative terrain, from an immaculate observation of the female physiognomy to the bewilderment of the elderly; from silent hidden love to a lifetime reminiscence of an immigrant's England, these stories are warm and tender, frightening and funny. They confirm the arrival of a major storyteller.

Carolyn Forché

When he was awarded an honorary degree in civil law at Newcastle University in 1967, Dr Martin Luther King gave an electrifying extemporaneous address, speaking without notes, in which he said: 'There are three urgent and indeed great problems that we face today... That is the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war.' As part of a fifty year anniversary and celebration, this anthology gathers poets from both sides of the Atlantic to address the challenges set outby Dr King. It's a shock to think how little has changed, and that Martin Luther King could well be speaking right here, right now. In the spirit of Dr King and his work as a humanitarian and activist, this anthology brings together poems that offer powerful testimonies to the urgent issues Dr King defines and represents the polyphony of voices that speak in resistance to our continuing problems of racism, poverty and war. Featuring poems by Claudia Rankine, Grace Nichols, Yusef Komunyakaa, Moniza Alvi, Rita Dove, Daljit Nagra, Imtiaz Dharker, Fred D'Aguiar, Oliver de la Paz, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, John Agard, Patricia Smith, Jericho Brown, Toi Derricotte, Vahni Capildeo, Carl Phillips, Sarah Howe, Elizabeth Alexander, Ishion Hutchinson, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Marilyn Nelson, Mimi Khalvati, Nikki Giovanni, Robert Pinsky, Bernardine Evaristo, Vidyan Ravinthiran, Major Jackson, Tim Seibles, Choman Hardi, Benjamin Zephaniah, Shazea Quraishi, E. Ethelbert Miller, Sandeep Parmar, Malika Booker, Roger Robinson, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Rae Paris, Kendel Hippolyte, Amali Rodrigo, Zaffar Kunial, Rishi Dastidar, Raymond Antrobus, Mai Der Vang, Martin Espada, Inua Ellams, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Gregory Pardlo, Edward Doegar, Degna Stone, MacDonald Dixon, Ada Limon, Philip Metres, Nick Makoha, Nathalie Handal, Lauren K Alleyne, Kevin Bowen, Bashabi Fraser, Satchid Anandan.

Poems in Celebration of Martin Luther King

The Mighty Stream

I want to find it all now know our names know the others in history so many women have been lost at sea so many stories have been swept away Chiaroscuro: (noun) the treatment of light and shade in drawing and painting. Aisha, Yomi, Beth and Opal couldn't be more different, but when Aisha hosts a dinner party, the friends soon discover that they're all looking for an answer to the same question. Does it lie in Aisha's childhood? Or in Beth and Opal's new romance? Who will tell them who they really are? What starts out as a friendly conversation between women, soon turns heated when Yomi reveals what she really thinks about Beth and Opal's relationship. A searing, tender look at queer Black womanhood by award-winning writer and Scots Makar Jackie Kay.

Jackie Kay

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