The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

Maggie Mackay

loves family history, winding it into lyrical poems in print and online journals such as Ink Sweat &Tears, Prole, Spelt, Southlight and in several anthologies, including ‘MeToo’ and ‘Bloody Amazing!’, both winners of Sabotage Awards. Her pamphlet The Heart of the Run was published by Picaroon Poetry in 2018 and her collection A West Coast Psalter, Kelsay Books in 2021. The Poetry Archive WordView 2020 awarded her poem ‘How to Distil a Guid Scotch Malt’ a place in the permanent collection. She is a MA poetry graduate of Manchester Metropolitan University and a reviewer for Sphinx Review.

    I with my mother became we

    Maggie Mackay reviews Grief’s Alphabet by Carrie Etter (Seren, 2024)

    Alert, electric, alive

    Maggie Mackay reviews A Change in the Air by Jane Clarke (Bloodaxe, 2023)

    We have an opportunity to listen 

    Maggie Mackay reviews High Nowhere by Jean Atkin (Indigo Dreams, 2023)

    Sunset over Sky dishes

    Maggie Mackay reviews 20 by Holly Magill (Drunk Muse Press, 2023)

    What’s left at the end of the world

    Maggie Mackay reviews Sensitive to Temperature by Serena Alagappan (Smith|Doorstop Books, 2023)

    Limos : acceptance, smirom : peace

    Maggie Mackay reviews Didicoy by Karen Downs-Barton (Smith|Doorstop Books, 2023)

    Of difference, and of faith and its loss

    Maggie Mackay reviews Hymnal by Julia Bell (Parthian, 2023)

    Something beginning with earth

    Maggie Mackay reviews Desperate Fishwives by Lindsay Macgregor (Molecular Press, Geneva, 2022)

    Your gift living on in cracked pots carried from garden to garden 

    Maggie Mackay reviews The Doll's Hospital by Jenny Robb (Yaffle, 2022)

    Woods, words, a sword of spells bunched up on a larch

    Maggie Mackay reviews Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands by Sarah Wimbush (Bloodaxe, 2022)

    What does Maggie Mackay say?

    I found poetry through the Open University creative writing courses which I studied after retirement from teaching ...

    Three pamphlets: Sarah Mnatzaganian, Judi Sutherland and Hugo Williams

    Matthew Paul reviews Lemonade in the Armenian Quarter by Sarah Mnatzaganian, Maggie Mackay reviews Following Teisa by Judi Sutherland and Hilary Menos reviews Badlands by Hugo Williams

    Four thrilling new worlds

    Maggie Mackay looks at the four winning pamphlets of The Poetry Business International Book & Pamphlet Competition 2021

    The Edwin Morgan Poetry Award 2020

    Maggie Mackay considers pamphlets by the winner, runner up and shortlisted poets, and looks at what they have done since

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