Cold Night Lullaby, Colin MacKay

Flashback Friday from 25th December, 2009

I asked for Colin Mackay’s Cold Night Lullaby for Christmas 2009 because of Karine Polwart’s song, ‘Waterlily’. It’s a beautiful song, and one that has been known to make me cry — based on Colin Mackay’s writing about his experiences in Bosnia, about the woman he loved, Svetlana. I couldn’t tell you about the really technical merits of the poetry right now, but the images are so vivid, searing. I doubt I can ever, ever listen to ‘Waterlily’ again without crying. Especially when I know what Colin Mackay went on to do — how he killed himself, so very, very methodically.

Reading around a little, I can see that there are some questions about geography/chronology in these poems. I wouldn’t be surprised by some fictionality, or inaccuracy due to how confusing and bewildering living through something like that can be, how destroying, but I think that Colin Mackay probably believed every word he wrote — and that’s what matters.

Rating: 5/5