Cairn : ‘A marvel of a book’ Observer – 9781914502002

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 SALTIRE AWARDIn keeping with the concept of Cairn the 2025 reprint contains an added ‘stone’ – the much loved poem What the Clyde said after Cop 26’This marvel of a book is a profound meditation on the precariousness of the planet … these pieces kept bringing tears to my eyes, catching me offguard … it is what art or, in this case, wonderful writing can do’Kate Kellaway, ObserverCairn: A marker on open land, a memorial, a viewpoint shared by strangers.

For the last five years poet and author Kathleen Jamie has been turning her attention to a new form of writing: micro-essays, prose poems, notes and fragments. Placed together, like the stones of a wayside cairn, they mark a changing psychic and physical landscape. The virtuosity of these short pieces is both subtle and deceptive.

Jamie’s intent ‘noticing’ of the natural world is suffused with a clear-eyed awareness of all we endanger. She considers the future her children face, while recalling her own childhood and notes the lost innocence in the way we respond to the dramas of nature. With meticulous care she marks the point she has reached, in life and within the cascading crises of our times.

Cairn resonates with a beauty and wisdom that only an artist of Jamie’s calibre could achieve.