Jackie Kay's latest collection is inspired by the journey she undertook to write her memoir, Red Dust Road. Her new poems explore what it means to have roots, specifically roots in different cultures – with old Scots and modern Scots alongside poems inspired by Ibo dialect, and poems inspired by African and European art.
Fiere is the old Scots word for friend. It appears in Auld Lang Syne: "And there's a hand my trusty fiere, / And gies a hand o'thine." In this beautiful collection, full of striking voices, African and Scottish poems reach out and shake hands with one another.
