Introduction

Surveying the range of Kathleen Jamie's corpus to date, from the earliest collection of verse ( Black Spiders, 1982 ) to her poetry collection The Overhaul (2012), her volume of nature essays, Sightlines (2012), and her mixed media work, Frissures (2013), this introduction assesses Kathleen Jamie’s contribution to contemporary poetry on a national and international scale. Restless, complex and intelligent, yet always lucid and clear, Jamie's imagination is of that rare kind that resonates with every kind of reader, from general readers to specialists. This introduction argues that Kathleen Jamie has emerged as a writer of singular originality, skill and artistic vision. Her vision casts light on the way we live in relation to non-human beings in the twenty-first century, and it stimulates us into imagining how we might live better, with a greater awareness, appreciation and responsiveness to our environment than we currently do.