by Christina Riley
Jamie’s latest collection, Cairn, refuses to be about any one thing. Hillsides are graced with tormentil and turbines. A tanker carries oil through Glen Esk. In ‘Plasthvalen’, a striking sequel to Sightlines’ ‘Hvalsalen’—in which readers are led through the rib cages of ancient whales in Norway’s Natural History Museum, the smell of whale oil emanating from brushed bone—blue plastic bags glow in glass cylinders following their excavation from the belly of a Cuvier beaked whale. In ‘Wind Driven Clouds’ a blackbird “flees urgently over the rooftops, like an innocent who has suddenly understood”, and the state of the world is distilled into the flutter of two wings. Barriers between this thing and that dissipate, reminding me of a moment in Surfacing: “Transformation is possible. A bear can become a bird. A sea can vanish, rivers change course. The past can spill out of the earth, become the present.”
Now in her 60s, Jamie sifts through her layered years to consider now what is passed on to others. The future becomes the present, and acutely present is the breakdown of the climate which bites at the heels of each piece and brings an urgency to her words. “I’m going to live through it”, Jamie’s son declares on the hundredth page, and hers is not the only heart that clenches. Throughout Cairn life is ready to be toppled at any moment. Loved ones, human and non-human, are lost. Raindrops quiver precariously on telephone wires “as if acknowledging their own brief existence”. The whole collection effervesces with the astonishment, the absurdity, almost, of life, and the privilege of living through it. Look!, she exclaims, at this tuft of heather! Not because it wants us to, or because it will change your life, but because we don’t have much time and while we’re here, we can. (And, you never know, it might just change your life.)
“The stems tether them to the tree trunk, against the west-rushing water; the updraft makes the flower-heads swoon. They receive and give at once; over the river’s flow they open yellow into the moment – they are the moment – calling us to notice we are ‘snatched from death’, as the papers say, every fresh instant of our lives.”
In ‘Hawkbit’, the yellow flowers “lean out in abandon”, “careless of themselves”. Again, like the innocent blackbird, life is simply being lived. It is everything and enough. As humans we can be swift to mould ourselves, individually and collectively, creating clearly defined purposes and goals and identities, even turning living, breathing animals into brands. It leaves very little movement for life to go on in abandon. Even stone is not a solid thing, we’re just not here long enough to see it move.
Miek Zwamborn’s accompanying drawings act like a smirr, barely-there until it’s drenching. If a solid line among them exists it looks as though it’s been drawn underwater. It brings me back to The Nature Library’s recent celebration of the poet-artist pairing of Kathleen Raine and Barbara Hepworth, a product of publisher Meary James Tambimuttu’s vision and trust in putting two artists together to make something beautiful. If the world is ours to make, as Jamie says in ‘The Summit’, then we should be grateful for publishers like Sort of Books for also placing value in such pairings.
If I asked anything of Cairn it’s only through my own greed — I want more. I reach the end of a page and want it to continue tumbling on. But Jamie is a poet, and she knows fine well when she’s said all she has to say on the matter. And of course, it works. The fragments are picked up like pebbles, rolled between fingers, not to be deceived by their small size. And as claimed in ‘Quartz Pebble’, if we can’t resist pocketing the knap-worthy and the beautiful, then this collection is surely irresistible.
Christina Riley
Christina Riley (she/her) is a Florida born, Ayrshire based interdisciplinary artist who uses primarily photography, drawing, writing, found objects and installation to explore the essential connections between art, writing and science, with a particular focus on the ocean and underwater habitats.
Her debut collection of essays was longlisted for Canongate’s Nan Shepherd Prize for Nature Writing 2019 and is represented by Caro Clarke at Portobello Literary Agency. Also in 2019 Riley started The Nature Library, a roving library of books connecting people to land, sky and sea, and her photographic series The Beach Today was published by Guillemot Press in 2021