Thanks to everyone who turned out last night, for a fascinating evening with Mirrorball supremo Jim Carruth (ably assisted by William Bonar, Amy Anderson, and Mark Russell).
Jim came across as a modest and generous individual, keen to nurture everyone’s voice (even at the expense of his own). When he finally read his own poems, they were well worth the wait. Hailing from a farming family, Jim is acutely aware of the importance of Scotland’s rural way of life and the danger of that being lost in the dislocation of the modern world. His poems brought to life such varied joys as being a good judge of horseflesh, the art of castration, and the teenage trauma of beautiful daughters having to dance with a selection of aging farmers at the local dance.
Amongst the grounded earthiness were also nuggets of very moving sentiment. In Song of the Siren, we found this: “Old men, it is the earth that sings to you”.
