Nalini Paul

1970s Vancouver meets current-day Orkney via the Scottish Highlands – with a few birds thrown in for good measure.

Excerpt:

The Speaking Sea

White breakers send words
convey messages for miles
waves murmur blue lament.

The swell sighs
breathes meaning
exhales anticipation.

Whispers carry themselves with the tide.
Missives due North
to a cliff-jagged coast
chatter and lap against the wind-rocked boat
over crash and spray and mist,
through gale force nine and tempest.

Their songs join the separated
bobbing them homeward.

About the Author

Nalini’s poetry “is alive to outer detail of vision and inward emotional understanding.  Her poems are spare and delicate, yet often probe deeply into a situation.” – Tessa Ransford

Nalini Paul has recently completed a one-year post as the George Mackay Brown Writing Fellow in Orkney.  Her first poetry chap book collection, Skirlags (Red Squirrel Press, 2009) was shortlisted for the Callum Macdonald Award.  She was born in India, grew up in Vancouver, and has been living in Scotland since 1994.

http://www.redsquirrelpress.com/index.php?skirlags