Santiago

Cheryl Follon was born in Ayrshire, where she grew up. She studied Law and then English and Scottish Literature at Glasgow University before taking an MPhil in Creative Writing at Trinity College Dublin, and now teaches at a college of further education in Glasgow. She has received two writer’s bursaries from the Scottish Arts Council, and has published three collections with Bloodaxe, All Your Talk (2004), Dirty Looks (2010) and Santiago (2017). Her essay on the Mojave Desert was shortlisted for the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize for travel writing in 2012.

'Idiosyncratic, bright as new paint, at times enigmatic, at times as clear as water, Cheryl Follon's Santiago is a collection - are they prose poems? are they vignettes? - unexpected and colourful as contemporary life, vivid with dailiness, packed with unusual but strangely accessible ways of looking. It is a world in which a museum sapphire, considering, or a well's surface reflecting the faces of onlookers, have things to say to us, and in which subjects various as blood, Hanoi, a grasshopper, and an exquisitely bored Sultan mingle in enlivening juxtaposition. In a poetry culture frequently hamstrung by political correctness and a sense of the worthy it is also, that increasingly rare thing, an entertaining book.' - Gerry Cambridge

• Insomnia 9 Blood 10 Brogues 11 New York 12 Negativity 13 Fate 14 Lightbulb 15 Couch 16 Digital Clock Display 17 Sugar 18 Sultan 19 Contrariness 20 Moth 21 Manners 22 Air Con 23 Novels 24 Canoeing 25 Croissant 26 Boredom 27 Russian Doll 28 Grimm Tales 29 Magnesium 30 Amulet 31 Comma 32 Pineapple 33 Time Difference 34 Dutch Cuisine 35 Airline Food 36 Ear Canal 37 Sea Anemone 38 Netball 39 Socks 40 Hanoi 41 Tree 42 Snow 43 Paper Flowers 44 Creme Caramel 45 Python 46 Shyness 47 Patience 48 Fame 49 Geneva 50 Memories 51 Pretzel 52 Loneliness 53 Making Do 54 Sculpture 55 Ripples 56 Brain 57 Octopus 58 Light 59 Rain 60 Fire 61 Istanbul 62 Anxiety 63 Luck 64 TV 65 Sapphire 66 Hormones 67 Iceland 68 Cartoonist 69 Water 70 Shadows 71 Homesickness 72 Grasshopper 73 Knife 74 Dust Motes 75 Jealousy 76 Heartbreak 77 Fly 78 Sand 79 Lion 80 Surgery 81 Radio Waves 82 Butter 83 Oxygen 84 Addiction 85 Forgetfulness 86 Sleep 87 Bluebeard 88 Minneapolis 89 Wedding 90 Fashion 91 Tattoo 92 Santiago 93