Jackie Kay: My Grandmother
My Grandmother My grandmother is like a Scottish pine , tall, straight-backed, proud and plentiful, a fine head of hair, greying now tied up in a loose bun . Her face is ploughed land . Her eyes shine rough as amethysts . She wears a plaid shawl of our clan with the zeal of an Amazon . She is one of those women burnt in her croft rather than moved off the land. She comes from them, her snake’s skin. She speaks Gaelic mostly , English only when she has to, then it’s blasphemy . My grandmother sits by the fire and swears There’ll be no darkie baby in this house My grandmother is a Scottish pine, tall, straight-backed proud and plentiful, her hair tied with pins in a ball of steel wool. Her face is tight as ice and her eyes are amethysts. Copyright © Jackie Kay, Bloodaxe Books, www.bloodaxebooks.com Here is an introductory article , which leads you onto a text about her use of metaphors and similes . A good poem to go with "My Grandmother" is " My Grandmother's H