Lines Review

I was at the National Library of Scotland last week for the twelfth Callum Macdonald Memorial Award ceremony. The top prize went to a pamphlet by poet Lesley Harrison.

Speakers recalled Callum Macdonald's extraordinary achievements as a printer and publisher. It was, of course, his company that produced the now sadly-missed Lines Review magazine. Former editors Tessa Ransford and Trevor Royle both made moving speeches.

I recalled the delight I felt on the occasions any of my submissions were  accepted - I knew I was in very good company! And I remembered twelve of my earliest attempts at haiku being published - in issue 139.

As I sit here on an unseasonably warm May afternoon, two of them seem appropriate:

An aeroplane hums
through the blue, as far away
as a child's summer.

Swallows swoop over
the old stone bridge that shadows
motionless trout.

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