Lynn Valentine
Landscaper by Lynn Valentine
His work, the slow heaping
of soil into a grave.
He digs the shape of a life,
stands well back while mourners
seed the ground with tears.
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Afterwards, a nod to his mate,
the push of earth against wood and air,
the filling in, the flattening.
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In summer he tends the flower beds,
talks to roses, watches
each pale petal fall.
Alone in Iona Catherdral by Lynn Valentine
I thought I felt His breath there,
an opening
in my palms, while tourists knelt outside
bothering graves.
Was it just a dance of wind
through a worn door,
a chance of sunlight and shadow as I
prayed?
Since then I’m watchful, quote
half-forgotten
Sunday school blessings, prime
myself for signs:
dark skies smoking blood in a place
far away,
the sea salting claims on what’s mine.
Lynn Valentine lives in the Black Isle with Ben Wyvis as her neighbour.
Lynn’s debut collection, Life’s Stink and Honey, was published in 2022 after winning the Cinnamon Press Literature Award. Her Scots language pamphlet A Glimmer o Stars was published by Hedgehog Poetry Press in 2021 after winning their dialect award.
She was one of the inaugural mentees of the Roddy Lumsden Memorial Mentorship Scheme 2022-23 organised by the Scottish Poetry Library and the poet Niall Campbell.
In 2021 Lynn was runner-up in the Scots category of the Wigtown prize and had a Scots poem chosen as one of the best Scottish poems by the Scottish Poetry Library. In 2024 she won the Scots category of the McLellan prize and was shortlisted in the Scots category of the Wigtown Prize.
She is currently working on her second poetry collection, Fallow, due to be published in 2026 by Cinnamon Press.
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Lynn is on Twitter @dizzylynn
