Mairi Campbell-Jack
Image by Michael Liao via Unsplash
Gathering in the darkest place you started
small. So small you could not be weighed or seen.
From the miniscule you grew
and became. Gather all to you,
it gladly gushes in. Gurgling,
washing round leaving
the slick of life through you.
Once you burst out
it does not stop, but still all rolls
in your direction
and at the back of your throat
I can see the whorl of the universe
nestling on the cliff of your tongue.
Frenetics turns to elegance.
You feel it begin to slow, it’s colours to deepen.
Outside it looks like you crumple and crumble
a little more each day.
But inside, oh,
you continue to unfold,
to bend,
reshape,
flex and spring.
The cosmos inside always swirls.
Until you take your very last breath
you are always becoming.
Mairi Campbell-Jack
Fearless Femme Writer in Residence.
Originally, from the Black Isle, Mairi has lived in Edinburgh for eighteen years, she
works in politics for a charity.
Mairi has an MA in Creative Writing from Edinburgh Napier University. Her poetry has
appeared in The Scotsman, Poetry Scotland, Popshot and has been anthologized. She
had a double pamphlet of poetry This is a Poem, published by Burning Eye Press in
2012, and one of its poems I Forced My Vanity To Stand on a Cliff, was chosen by the
Poetry Book Society as it’s Poem of the Week in 2013. Mairi has performed her poetry
at the Glastonbury Festival, many Scottish spoken word nights and alongside Liz
Lockhead, Lousie Welsh and Vicky Jarrett.
Mairi’s prose has appeared in The List, Octavius and Listrature Vol 1. Her political non-
fiction writing has appeared on numerous Scottish political blogs.
Like everyone else at FF Mairi loves to spend her spare time reading and normally has
three to four books on the go. She also enjoys baking, crafting, walking, art, using the
fact she has a child as an excuse to act childishly, annoying her boyfriend, binging
Netflix, and lusting after fashion she cannot afford.
Mairi has recently finished a creative non-fiction book and is searching for an agent, as
well as an illustrator to work with on her graphic novel script, while also working on a YA
dystopian fantasy with her daughter.
