Face North

Abstract

An evocative autoethnographic essay on loss, writing, belonging, and landscape, on clan and north. In 2006, I went to Caithness in the far north of Scotland to be “writer-in-residence” and stayed five years. My task was to write poetry in response to the landscape, a task that took me deep into exploring myself as a writer, and awakened in me questions of home, family, and my relationship to nature. Unbeknownst to me I had arrived in the land of my ancestors, also a land scarred with loss, poverty, and clearance. But alongside the scars and ruined crofts were small and huge wonders, of nature, wildlife, cairns, standing stones, people, seals, and the rugged coastline. An exploration into writing landscape as a way into belonging.