Stranger Within: Poems & Prose by Blair H. Smith

Description

Sometimes, if you look inside, you meet an unfamiliar person, who can surprise, threaten, comfort, and daunt. They can also offer an alternative lens.

In this collection of poetry and prose, Blair H. Smith looks through that lens, exploring love and life, health and nature, darkness and light. With Emma Rankin illustrating, together they find that the amazing world we already know is even stranger within.

Blair H. Smith was born, bred and educated in Glasgow, where he graduated in medicine in 1987. He has pursued a clinical and academic career in Glasgow, Sheffield, Aberdeen and Dundee (where he still works). A long-term resident of Methlick, Aberdeenshire, he now lives in St Andrews, Fife, with his wife Jane. They have four adult children, whom they prioritise, living in Scotland. His published writing is mostly in the form of research papers, reports and book chapters, with a focus on chronic pain and (genetic) epidemiology. He has contributed poetry and prose to various regular publications, including Lines Review, the British Journal of General Practice, Hoolet, Yonkly and the Journal of the American Medical Association. This is his second formal collection, and his first since the last millennium.

Emma Rankin is an award-winning Scottish artist from North East Fife. She holds a Master of Fine Art in Art, Science & Visual Thinking from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee, as well as a Master of Art in Printmaking from LUCA School of Art in Belgium. Her research is centred around the visibility of thresholds and the interiority of landscape, weaving her way through mineral narratives and land and seascape ecologies. Emma’s multidisciplinary creative practice is rooted in her cultural background with links to mysticism and folklore, through visual narratives that cast off the written word, and through the relation to people who have wandered before. Emma has held Artist in Residence positions in Scotland and Europe and exhibited internationally. She is currently based in Glasgow with her partner Blair and dog Fergus.

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