This summer we are really being spoiled for beautiful poetry collections, and A Song to Keep is another book that poetry lovers should seek out. In Olivia’s debut collection, stunningly illustrated by Domenica de Ferranti, she reflects on her journey from her past in South Africa to her present life in the Highlands of Scotland, on trauma, redemption, community and the determination that we should all belong.

Extracts taken from A Song to Keep: A kinship of poems and drawings
By Olivia Findlay (author) & Domenica de Ferranti (illustrator)
Published by Scotland Street Press

A Rhythm Devine

On
the curve of
Nature’s divine smile
I have seen the future pass beneath the shadows
of a melancholy autumn and slip beneath the seasons
with an ever-changing face and I have befriended it on the newest of
days so that when at times uncertain its fixed on me a stormy gaze
I have never been afraid
for the future finds
its rhythm in
my steady
pace

Some little thing

Spend a lonely day with me
Even if you’d rather not

Take a turn with me
Though I need a lot

I may never do the same for you
Or care as much

Still, waste your time on me
share some little thing
With me

As if I deserve it
Though I can never earn it

Believe in me
‘Til it hurts

Forgive me
My unforgivable thirst

A Song to Keep

All the summer long there had been children growing in the garden, pushing
through the undergrowth, wise-eyed, they found their faces in mine and
and leaned out, with forever arms, so I plucked them from the roots,
delighted by their bloom and I sang to them, a song they
could keep, yet under it all, I hid my unease like the
morning moon that shines a little keener, unsure
of its fate, so that song can be heard
even from the outside of time

A Song to Keep: A kinship of poems and drawings by Olivia Findlay & Domenica de Ferranti is published by Scotland Street Press, priced £19.99.