Vestigial

In September 2020, Rodge Glass of Strathclyde University commissioned acclaimed poet Juana Adcock to write a poem in response to Alasdair Gray’s Lanark, with the support of the Alasdair Gray Archive. The work of this father figure in the renaissance of Scottish literature and art was so expansive that Adcock was inspired to write a series of poems and texts as she approached the multiple facets of the work. The concept of vestigial traces – of loss, identity, memory, human contact and urban life weaves this new work together.

The chapbook opens and closes with the image of a silhouette in a window, which comes up in Chapter 2 in Lanark, and draws also from the painting ‘Eden and After’ featuring a snake with legs – hence the title of the pamphlet, Vestigial. It plays with the layout on the page, the remains of cities, genomes, memory, human contact, and with several attempts at writing the same poem, loss and potential. Playing with form and phrase, Juana has taken Alasdair’s work into a conversation about contemporary Scotland.