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Richie McCaffery

Richie McCaffery lives in Stirling and studies and works as a teaching assistant at the University of Glasgow. He is the author of two poetry pamphlets, Spinning Plates (HappenStance Press, 2012) and Ballast Flint (Cromarty Arts Trust, 2013). His debut full-length collection is Cairn (Nine Arches Press, 2014). His poems have appeared in journals and anthologies such as The Dark Horse, Stand, The Rialto and The Best British Poetry 2012.

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Spinning Plates

My mother was mad as mercury,
mad as a silken Disraeli stovepipe hat
hiding a gypsum-white rabbit. 

She once told me – the malt talking –
I wasn't her first born boy;
there had been seminal drafts.

She said being pregnant 
was like spinning a bone-china plate
on the thinnest stick inside you –

breakages were bound to occur.
It was a question of which piece 
could drop intact and roll around

on a hardwood floor, its rim ringing
with cries. My sister is a wild firing, 
an artisan’s multi-coloured plate

still atwirl. I am a white canteen 
saucer, ready to be tanned with tea-
slops. A cupped palm for spillage. 


‘Spinning Plates’ from Spinning Plates © Richie McCaffery. Reprinted by kind permission of the author and HappenStance Press, 2012.

Listen to Richie McCaffery read and discuss his work on the Scottish Poetry Library podcast.

Listen to Richie McCaffery read his poem 'Spinning Plates'.
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