A review by singlecrow
Fiere by Jackie Kay

I really wanted to like this more than I did. Kay is a half-white, half-Nigerian poet and a prominent lesbian poet as well as the Scots Makar, and I was delighted to hear that part of this collection is in Scots; I was very keen to see that background of identity synthesised in the language. And there is good stuff here - I liked "Fiere", the title poem, "Black River", which resonates for me with Langston Hughes' The Negro Speaks of Rivers, and "Ukpor Market" is brutal - but somehow it never quite came together for me.