The Last Wolf of Scotland (Paperback)

Discover the ritualistic world of MacGillivray, a Scottish poet, singer-songwriter and visual artist of exceptional standing. Her debut poetry collection distills her multi-faceted artistic persona into a poetry of echoing, incantatory force. Written in a free verse that modulates between romantic shadow and performative revelation, the poems collide action and image into surprising combinations. From the lion "sick on honey heather" who is devoured by a horse from a George Stubbs painting, to a Wild West Rodeo at Loch Ness, MacGillivray twists the past into visceral new configurations. The work reflects her passion for the weird and wonderful legends which fill Scottish history, and the often surprising connections they make with sympathetic cultures, such as that of the Navajo, whose roaming skin-walkers meet Ernest Seton - the man reported to have killed the last wolf of Scotland - in a wildly atmospheric encounter. Voicing myths of origin that are both extraordinary acts of the imagination, and yet too strange to be entirely fictitious, MacGillivray's debut collection is an essential read.