Mary Smith’s first full length collection of poetry covers conflict in Afghanistan to memories of childhood with much in between. The poems in this collection explore wide ranging themes of homeland, identity, family.

Imaginary, mythic characters, larger than life, attractive and scary, loom eerily (the Njuggle and the Trowie, for example). But most of the all it’s the lonely landscapes that call, the far northern places where the poet encounters herself.

For some, the title Transparencies will recall family photos of the 1960s and 70s, and many of the poems in this collection are indeed nostalgic. But the book is mostly about the transparency of existence, as veils of meaning dissolve and reform, both in the physical world and in those areas of language, memory and love that most define us.

The book contains poems about people and places from Burns to Betjeman, and from Roman Britain to Nigeria during the civil war. Christmas, Easter and St. Valentine’s Day are celebrated, and a number of translations illustrate the genius of Alexander Pushkin.

Poems inspired both directly by Ovid’s tales and informing the new story that emerges from the old – a post-apocalyptic vision of the earth where metamorphoses engender rebirth out of the ashen wasteland that man has made of the world.

Locust and Marlin considers how, in lives bright and brief as a candle’s burn, we tell our stories and locate the places where we live and love.

Enveloping the Highland Clearances, Catholicism in NE Scotland, nineteenth century coal mines, camp followers in the Curragh of Kildare, life on board emigration ships, rural and tenemental living conditions in the 1800s – more than a family history Stirring the Dust is a superbly well-written narrative of modern Scotland that will resonate with many readers.

Shortlisted for Creative Scotland Book of the Year Award 2010, I Love You, Goodbye brilliantly captures the exhilaration, confusion and frustration of relationships. Tracking the interconnected lives of four characters living in a small Scottish village, Rogerson explores the different ways in which people, of various backgrounds, cultures and ages, approach love.