You are on the judging panel for the Rathbones Folio Prize. Can you explain what makes it unique and how it has evolved? The prize is unique because it is writers who nominate the books.
You won the Guardian Fiction Prize for Trumpet, among other awards. Are there cons as well as pros to prize culture? I guess the cons for certain writers are all psychological. Like too much pressure on a footballer when taking a penalty! It can make writers suddenly feel undeserving, and self-sabotage their next offering.
Trumpet was inspired by US jazz musician Billy Tipton, and you’ve also written a biography of blues singer Bessie Smith. What does music mean to you? I want to quote that John Miles song – ‘music was my first love and it will be my last’ – from the ’70s. I’ve always felt happiest listening to people sing live, whether it was in my living room in Glasgow or Manchester, or at Ronnie Scott’s, or whether it was Blue Note in Greenwich Village or Matt and Phred’s in Manchester. Much of my poetry has been inspired or provoked by the blues, by the 12-bar beat, and many of my poems have been made into songs.
You were Makar or Scottish poet laureate, from 2016 to 2021. What did it involve and what did it mean to you? It was the biggest honour of my life. I loved it. I read poems for a huge amount of big public events – to open a new session of Scottish Parliament (Threshold in 2016), to open the Queensferry Bridge, to launch the Solheim Championship in women’s golf. I launched The Makar’s Malt – which had a poem on the bottle – and I read up and down and across the country, particularly visiting people on the islands and peninsulas. I got to know my country in a whole new way.
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As a teenager you worked as a cleaner for David Cornwell (John le Carré), which you likened to being a spy. Tell me more: People don’t realise how much cleaners learn about your life, your habits, your peccadilloes. They think you’re invisible. And invisibility can be the best disguise. You’re always going to be underestimated; people, even sympathetic liberal-minded people, are not going to think that you’re smart. And you get the chance to listen in and observe the mores and manners of people who have more money than you…
What projects are you working on? I’m working on a new collection of poems whose working title is A Life in Protest. I’m also adapting my memoir Red Dust Road into a screenplay.
Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage? Yes, I found the wee bothy/croft where Nan Shepherd wrote The Living Mountain. I hiked up the steep hills from Braemar, and there was a green, rough wee place in a state of disrepair with the most amazing view of the mountains. I went to find Hugh MacDiarmid’s Brownsbank cottage, near Biggar, again in a poor way, but still had his Wallie dugs on the mantelpiece and the green spines of his Penguin crime collection vivid on his bookshelves.
I would pass The Welcome Law which requires countries to welcome the world’s refugees
What is the best writing advice you have heard? Toni Morrison said the reader should never be able to see the writer sweat! Ian Jack, Granta’s wonderful editor, who died recently, once wanted to delete two of my sentences from a short story. He said they almost had a sign on them which said: Danger, Creative Writer at Work!
Who do you admire the most? I admired the African-American Poet Audre Lorde for her outspokenness, her visionary eye. I admired my mum and my dad for the way they lived their precious lives, and the way they encouraged me to stand up for my beliefs.
You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish? I would pass The Welcome Law which requires countries to welcome the world’s refugees, to be kind and open, and which requires different communities to welcome each other.
What current book, film, TV show and podcast would you recommend? I’d recommend Blake Morrison’s Two Sisters, a moving read, and I can’t wait to read Diana Evans new novel A House for Alice. Obviously, I would recommend every book on the Folio shortlist as well!
Which public event affected you most? I was very moved by the Gay Pride marches in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the sense of vanguardism, the pioneering panache, the camaraderie.
The most remarkable place you have visited? Most recently, a beautiful rainforest in Tobago, and further back The Great Wall of China and Kano in north Nigeria.
Your most treasured possession? An extraordinary photograph that my son found for me of Nina Simone singing at Ronnie Scott’s in 1983.
What is the most beautiful book that you own? I own a beautiful singular edition of James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain that was part of his own collection, and I own an old edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass that belonged to Claudia Jones, who organised an event at St Pancras Town Hall that was a precursor to the Notting Hill Carnival.
Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party? I’d invite Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, Ali Smith, Grace Paley and Zora Neale Hurston to dinner. I imagine they would all get on and we’d have a great time.
What is your favourite quotation? It comes from Burns: “O wad some pooer the giftie gie us to see ourselves as ithers see us.”
Who is your favourite fictional character? Janie Crawford in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes were Watching God.
A book to make me laugh? The book I’m rereading right now for the Folio – Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo – a sharp Orwellian satire. Enthralling and hilarious.
A book that might move me to tears? Amy Bloom’s In Love which I’ve just finished rereading for The Folio. It is one of those rare books that makes you laugh and cry in equal measure.
Jackie Kay is a judge for the 2023 Rathbones Folio Prize. The winner is announced on March 27th at the British Library. Join Jackie and the other judges, Ali Smith and Guy Gunaratne, and a stellar line-up of shortlisted authors, at an event at the British Library on March 26th. Book tickets here.
