The Spring Teller

About the Book: 

Spring water is like poetry, its source is underground. VALARIE GILLIES

Every spring has its own song - from potent legendary wells to inspiring new sources. Listening to the voice of each one, world-renowned poet Valerie Gillies composed a new poem to fit. The Spring Teller records the author's remarkable journey across Scotland, which took over three years and included visits to over a hundred springs.

Each thought-provoking poem mirrors the flow of the water, from still wells locked in the inner city to the free-flowing springs of mountain or glen.

In ten sections Gillies' poetry captures the mineral properties of these springs and explores them as sites of healing and cleansing, as places of pilgrimage and modern meetings, of connection between human and nature and, through her own form of poetic environmental activism, expresses how we should preserve these natural wonders.

The Spring Teller contains an intriguing introduction, landmark poems and a new map to help the reader visit these memorable places, while the photographs show the beauty of each spring. This book is a unique guide to the locations of springs in Scotland, their history and folklore and an exploration of their mysterious properties.

Reviews: 

What surprises and continually delights in this collection is its constantly renewed freshness of observation and language, like looking through a clear and powerful lens, which lets us move through the experience of the well with the poet. EDINBURGH REVIEW

About the Author:

VALERIE GILLIES is an award-winning poet with seven books to her name. Best known as the river poet who followed the Tweed and the Tay from sourse to sea, she has held writing fellowships at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, in East Loathian and Midlothian, and at the University of Edinburgh. Her poetry has been published internationally and translated into Italian and German. She teaches creative writing in schools, colleges and hospitals. Valerie lives in Edinburgh with her husband and children. Rebecca Marr is a photographer who was born near Beauly. She has worked in the highlands and in Edinburgh and the Lothians on photography commissions and her black and white photographs have been widely exhibited. Her commercial work has been used by theatres and newspapers, and in music promotion. As a sessional artist, she works with groups as diverse as mental health, HIV and AIDS, Attention Deficit Syndrome, and drug rehabilitation. She traveled accross Scotland with Valerie to capture this collection of portraits of men and beasts at home or in their own settings.