May Day

At the core of this vital and wonderful book are Jackie’s activist parents, and the book is filled with marches, demos, protests, dreams of Peggy Seeger and memories of Hugh MacDiarmid pushing a pram. Here’s a beautiful writer at the top of her game and if I ran Britain I would give out copies on the NHS. It’s a sublime, joyous, pot-banging volume of geniusAndrew O'Hagan, author of Mayflies and Caledonian Road, The Guardian

Jackie Kay is a distinctively Scottish voice in British poetry. In her new collection, May Day, accessible and gratifying, the personal and the political are seamlessly interwoven.Linton Kwesi Johnson, dub poet, activist and author of Mi Revalueshanary Fren and Time Come

Jackie Kay is the people‘s poet because she puts language where it starts - in our mouths, and holds it where it belongs - in our heartsJeanette Winterson, author of Frankissstein and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

What a timely reminder, as our right to peaceful protest is under threat, of the sense of community that comes from raising our voices together against war, injustice and oppression, of the power of protest, and of the joy of resistance. And threading these poems together, as always in Jackie's work, is love. Love of family, of friends and lovers, of art & music, of nature, of words, love for the world. This book made me want to fight harder, shout louder, stand taller and love better. Julie Hesmondhalgh, actress and star of Coronation Street, Happy Valley and Broadchurch