"Aye this is me!"
Following her first published poetry collection, Striking Back, Carol Ann Ross returns with a deeply personal gathering of poems that have travelled with her through a lifetime of love, loss, anger, humour and hard-won joy.
Where Striking Back gave voice to the women of the Miners' Strike, Aye This Is Me turns inward. These poems span decades - from young motherhood and mental health struggles, to political fire and working-class defiance; from sisterhood and friendship, to grief, ageing, and becoming the matriarch of a growing family.
Written in a rich blend of Scots and English, Carol Ross captures the music of her native tongue with warmth, wit and unapologetic honesty. She writes of poverty and pride, of siblings who rose to remarkable heights, of sisters lost too soon, of righteous anger at injustice, and of the small, luminous moments that make a life - a grandchild's question, a blackbird on a fence, a butterfly in flight.
There is bite here. There is tenderness. There are battle cries and love letters. There is laughter in the midst of tears. Above all, this is a testament to survival - to finding your voice after silence, your strength after sorrow, and your peace after the storm.
For readers who value authenticity, resilience, and the enduring power of family and community, Aye This Is Me is both a personal memoir in verse and a celebration of an unbreakable Scottish spirit.
