Jackie Kay: May Day - Taschenbuch

May Day is the long-awaited new poetry collection from one of our best-loved poets and former Makar of Scotland, Jackie Kay.

These poems cast an eye over several decades of political activism, from the international solidarity of the Glasgow of Kay´s childhood, accompanying her parents´ Socialist campaigns, through the feminist, LGBT+ and anti-racist movements of the 80s and 90s, up to the present day when a global pandemic intersects with the urgency of Black Lives Matter.

Kay brings to life a cast of influential figures, delving beneath the surfaces of received narratives: the Jamaican model Fanny Eaton, muse of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England Paul Robeson, Angela Davis and the poet Audre Lorde and a ´what-if´ poem concerning Rabbie Burns and a road-not-taken towards the West Indian slave trade. Woven through the collection is a suite of lyric poems concerning the recent losses of Kay´s parents: poems of grief and profound change that are infused with the light of love and celebration.