DWAMS by Shane Strachan

Description

In a spectrum of voices across Scots and English, the poems in DWAMS concern themselves with the climate emergency and just transition, rising xenophobia, and with queer romance and sex, in a groundbreaking debut collection from North East Scottish writer and poet Shane Strachan. The collection looks anew at the city of Aberdeen and the wider North East region’s industrial heritage, moving across time and place, from mountains and farmland to city and sea.

Shane Strachan was awarded Scots Champion at the 2023 Scots Language Awards following his year as the National Library of Scotland’s Scots Scriever writer-in-residence. His previous works include the novella Nevertheless (amaBooks), ‘The Shelter’ staged with the National Theatre of Scotland, and multiple poems and stories in Gutter, New Writing Scotland, Northwords Now, Stand and various anthologies. His poetry has also appeared on BBC Radio 4 and in Aberdeen Art Gallery and V&A Dundee. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Aberdeen where he now lectures in Creative Writing.

www.shanestrachan.com

A stunning collection. Razor sharp, unflinching and beautifully observed. Strachan is such a talent.
– Rachelle Atalla

A lustrous bonfire of lexical delight, where sensual shimmers flank blazing political vigour and trenchant tenderness. DWAMS is dazzling, gritty, louche, lilted and gooey — as is true of the writer himself. Full beam fantastic.
– Michael Pederson

Shane Strachan’s first collection is startling in its MacDiarmid-like range and inventiveness. Whether in Scots or English the voice ranges freely between laugh-out-loud humour, scathing political satire, sexy frankness, heartbreak and lyric tenderness. He is equally at home using the language of the Aberdeen street, the Grindr date or the civic and journalistic discourses that swirl all around us. DWAMS takes hold of the reader like a vivid, fast-moving carousel of voices: a genuinely dazzling, and important, debut.
– Wayne Price

I loved it: moving, angry, funny. DWAMS drills down into the profundities. While we are going to adore any collection where ‘oil squirtin,’ is rhymed with ‘Halliburton,’ here also are sudden, tender, ballad-like visions of North-East farm-life, contrasted with melancholy night-life encounters, atomised with cheeky and crafty wit. Strachan seems unique in being willing to stare into the eye of the ‘oil boom,’ and to cleverly question Mother Capitalism, in a way most others have now forgotten how to – or are too scared to. Compassionate, funny and fully encompassing his own language, it’s wonderful to have this book among us.
– Alan Warner

DWAMS is a canty clamjamfrie, tapping a chorus of voices from the bus shelters of Aberdeen’s Union Street to the incantations of the North Sea itself. Combining geological long views and biting satire on life in the North-East, ‘Dreepin’ is a blinder of a long poem. Look no further for an energy source for the next generation of Scottish poetry.
– David Wheatley

A bold, braw and brilliant treat of a debut. As sharp as granite, by turns wonderfully naughty and brutally whip-smart, Shane Strachan is a distinct, deliciously Doric and vibrantly vital voice.
– Morna Young

Strachan queers Aberdeen, breaking down the granite façade to reveal what glitters behind deftly deploying Doric, Scots and English. These poems enriched and challenged my understanding of a place and introduced me to a local history that has wider significance for us all.
– Damian Barr

Strachan breathes life and love into every word of Dwams, creating a thoroughly enjoyable read you’ll want to devour and savour in equal amounts.
– Len Pennie

Shane is the vyce o post-ile Aiberdeen. But this isnae a collection aboot decline. These modren Doric poems are baith a reckoning and a renewal. Whit’s gone afore is seen, clear-sichtit. And whit’s aheid is excitin. This is wark o a practised, pooerfu scriever. There’s poise here. Ilka line is craftit an honed. There’s also a guid earthy horniness here anaa. Ye cannae ask fir mair o an emerging poet, than fir the first line in their first collection tae be “Hello sexy…”
– Ali Heather