A Good Cause
A Good Cause
Back cover text:
I have devoted myself to the cause of The People. It is a good cause - it shall ultimately prevail - it shall finally triumph. - Thomas Muir in the Court of Judiciary, 30 August 1793
This new collection of work from Tessa Ramsford is marked out by an authentic and unique voice, honed through a lifetime of dedication to her art. The cover photograph shows the author in 1981 when she founded the School of Poets in Edinburgh.
Reviews:
Tessa Ransford’s poetry is characterised by flexibility and lucidity. Tom Pow
Tessa Ransford has never lost her faith in that powerful trinity – nature, love and, above all, poetry. Edinburgh Review
Ransford takes the reader on a journey to explore the differences between ‘then’ and ‘now’, linking the reader to a world now lost to most. These poems question what it is to be both British and Indian, drawing on the author’s memories and experiences to celebrate and uncover an ‘Indian’ self. Scottish Review of Books
Table of contents:
Acknowledgements
A Good Cause
To remember or not
A sign for our time
The Floating Iceberg’s Song
Dead statues
Crystal Ship
Belles Lettres
Let it not be said
Collie dog among the books
Hear, O Israel
Midas
Stock
Things mustn’t go back to ‘normal’
Is there a country?
The only 32 Cliffs
Religion among the people in Scotland
Religion in Scotland
Contumacious
The Cycle Path to Cramond
Deprived
The Enchanted Bridge
Mornings at Insh
Women’s secret language in China
Rune for him
Rune for myself
Sheer Life
Rossal, Sutherland, in the mists of time
Disseveral Irish Couplets
Dundrennan
Pow Wow
Rescue Attempt
Glas fhairge
Not on the map
Camouflage
The Great Tapestry of Scotland
Raise
Epithalamion
Girls’ song for counting cherry stones
Revelations
As I trod those stairs
Tea Ritual
beauty and freedom
Footlight
Adding to Favourites
For my grandsons
Lily of Raasay
Flos Campi
Barra
Chant, South Uist
but still a bird
Sentience
Aberlady Walk
December night, Edinburgh, 2002
Meeting of Gods
Rhymer’s Glen, Abbotsford
Stromness Stroll
An Exotic Sanctuary
Turner in Cornwall
broken and free
Poinsettia
Indian Leaf Butterfly
Mantra
The Loving Spirit
For Eric Wishart at sixty
Tribute to Duncan Glen
Poem for Zena
The Shortest Day
Vale
Yeats’s Grave
Marginalia
A Tryst
Trees for YES
Hope
Endings