Alison Flett (1965 – 2023)

Todd McEwen marks the passing of a beloved friend and poet.

We note with dismay the passing of our astounding friend and colleague Alison Flett. Born in Edinburgh, Alison spent some years in Orkney, working for Tam MacPhail at Stromness Books and Prints, where her sister Sheena now presides.

Alison’s first chapbook, Writing Like a Bastard, was published by Rebel Inc (under the name Alison Kermack) in 1993. She built on this startling, wry and acerbic work to produce the superb Whit Lassys Ur Inty, published by Thirsty Books in 2004.

In 2010, she moved with her family to Australia. She went to work promoting writing, poetry, and artistic links between people. She looked back with fondness, and some regret, on Scotland. We admired her beautiful book Where We Are, published by Cordite last year. In a mixture of vernaculars she addressed her new life with clarity and not a little irony.

Rattled, published also last year, by Allen and Unwin, was about the experience of being stalked. It is a sombre, analytic and important book for all of us living in the turmoil of modern life. And yet, characteristically, it was not without light and an unabashed yearning to help others.

All of us who knew Alison were charmed by her, by her wit, and by the remarkable depth, variety and nerve of her writing. It was always political, punchy, expertly concise, scary, frank and frazzling. It was also, quite frequently, hilarious. Her friend Mike Hopkins, who wrote to us from Australia with the bad news, said, ‘As you can imagine, she is hugely loved here.’

Of course.

wobbulz

see if yi go
well
ma hartz like
ma voice
in thi car
oan thi cobbulz