Wain: LGBT Reimaginings of Scottish Folktales

by Rachel Plummer, Helene Boppert (Other)

Overview

A boy selkie who takes girlness off like a sealskin, an untameable kelpie, the warrior-wife of a princess, and a Loch Ness monster who is too busy having fun to worry about words like "girl" or "boy". This is the way the world is - with just a bit of Scottish myth and magic thrown in. Wain is a fully-illustrated collection of LGBT themed poetry aimed at teens (but suitable for all ages) based on retellings of Scottish folk tales. These poems immerse readers in an enriching, diverse and enchanting vision of contemporary life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781910139479
Publisher:	Emma Press
Publication date:	02/28/2019
Pages:	90
Sales rank:	900,226
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.23(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Rachel Plummer is a poet living in Edinburgh. She is a Scottish Book Trust New Writer's Award winner (2016) and has won or placed in numerous other awards and competitions, including the Troubadour Prize, the Flambard Prize, the Penfro, and Canterbury Festival's Poet of the Year Award. Her poetry has appeared in magazines including The Dark Horse, Mslexia, Agenda, Interpreter's House, Gutter and New Walk, and anthologies including New Writing Scotland (2017, published by ASLS), The Emma Press Anthology of Love, and 154 from Live Canon, an anthology of contemporary responses to Shakespeare's sonnets. In 2017 she published a pamphlet of sci-fi poetry with House Press and received a cultural commission from LGBT Youth Scotland to write the poems that appear in Wain. She runs creative writing workshops for children and teens. She has two children, three guinea pigs, and entirely too many books.

Table of Contents

Poems

Selkie 1

The Seven Big Women of Jura 2

No Man 4

Kelpie 6

Glaistig 7

Love Song for a Wulver 8

The Wulvers’ Daughter 10

Nicnevin, Queen of the Fairies 13

Blue Men of the Minch 15

February 18

The Story of Snow 20

Nimblemen 22

Beira 24

The Well at the World’s End 25

Brownie 28

Changeling 31

Changeling II 32

Ghillie Dhu 33

Finfolkaheem 38

Finman 40

Nessie 42

Nessa’s Song 44

Cat Sìth 46

The Bridge of One Hair 50

Crumple Toes and Shamble Shanks 51

The Deaf River 52

Beithir 54

Bride, Goddess of Spring 55

Green Lady 57

Johnny O’Braidislea 60

Gentle Annie 62

Stoor Worm 64

Mairead 65

Who made this book?

About the poet 69

About the illustrator 70

Bonus Bits

Interview with Rachel 71

Interview with Helene 73

Write your own poem! 75

Glossary of Scottish folklore 77

About the Emma Press 80

Editorial Reviews

Plummer's message of supportive positivity and self-affirmation through legend and myth reassures any young reader that there are so many shades of being - that it is important, though often hard, to be who you are or want to be, not what others demand or expect to you be. [...] These poems are a deeply humane and necessary way of rehabilitating the old with the new and I wish as a child I'd had access to such resources as the poems and paintings in Wain.

Rachel Plummer's Wain represents an ideal project in the field of children's/YA literature whose aim is to make the queer community feel like a welcomed and valid part of society, as it manages to harness and combine the educational power of folktales and the possibility of inclusive heritage. Though it is primarily targeting Scottish families, the fact itself that it is grounded in mythology gives it potential to appeal to readers all over the world. As such, Wain does not only fulfill the manifesto of LGBT Youth Scotland, but goes beyond it, helping not only Scotland, but the world be the best place to grow up for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex young people.

From the Publisher