John of JOhn
Douglas Stuart
In stock
Scottish BookMay Day: the new collection from one of Britain’s best-loved poets (Paperback)
Author: Jackie Kay
£10.95
ScotlandSet in Glasgow
This long awaited poetry collection draws on decades of political activism and personal experience, from Glasgow solidarity movements to feminist, LGBT+ and anti-racist struggles, alongside themes of grief and love. Powerful and wide ranging, it will appeal to readers of contemporary poetry and socially engaged verse.
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Booksellers Notes
We found May Day galvanising and generous, weaving activism, memory, and grief into poems that feel lived-in, urgent, and quietly sustaining rather than slogan-driven.
Our summary description
As Independent Scottish booksellers, we write all of our descriptions personally, we hope you enjoy this one.
May Day gathers poems shaped by decades of attention to politics, community, and change. Drawing on memories of Glasgow activism in childhood and moving toward the present moment, the collection traces how public struggle and private life continually intersect. International solidarity, protest, and collective hope sit alongside the shock of a world halted by pandemic and the renewed urgency of Black Lives Matter.
Running through the book is a quieter, more intimate current. Poems written in the wake of the deaths of Kay’s parents reflect on grief as a force that alters everything it touches. Loss is not treated as an ending, but as a transformation, threaded with humour, tenderness, and the sustaining power of love.
Written with clarity and emotional range, May Day balances lyric reflection with political resolve. Jackie Kay writes without nostalgia or retreat, attentive to how language can hold both anger and celebration. The collection understands that change, whether personal or collective, is rarely clean or complete. What it offers instead is honesty, compassion, and a belief in the necessity of speaking, even when certainty is impossible.
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