Why herring? Good question! Not too sure, but every so often I write another one. Some of them appear on this page.

The Price of Gutted Herring

She found it while searching for traffic news,

risking taking her eyes off the road

to drift between stations, would remember

the next morning that somewhere

between Five Lane Ends and Old Man’s Bottom

Newcastle waned and Scotland conquered again.

A cheery voice told of upturned hay loads in Carmyllie,

broken lights in Bearsden and a main road closed

in Kirkintilloch, while she was heading to Catton

and Corbridge and queues on the Western Bypass

but for now, she was pulled in where the signal was strong,

head in hands, listening to the price of gutted herring

and catches unloaded everywhere north and west of there

on cobbled harbours glistening with fish scales,

where men with mobile phones and lilting voices

bid and bid again for cod and mackerel

and all the spoils of the sea that she remembered

miles inland, licking salt tears from fingers,

starting up the engine, trying to keep tuned in until

the voice faded and Radio Newcastle took over again.

(First published in the British Council/Picador New Writing 11) 

Herring Most Delicious

(reply to a mediaeval Irish praise poem to a herring in Lent)

In the beginning was the sea and the oceans were empty.

They were filled with ballyhoo and bigeye scad,

with blue ling, horse mussel, Greenland halibut,

even the spiny dogfish with its venomed dorsal fin.

What they lacked was herring. God’s spirit moved

across the water and perfection was born.

Clupea harengus, the ox-eye herring

and all those other relatives,

winter herring, fat herring, fjord herring,

Icelandic spring-spawning and herring

of the North Sea, Atlanto-Scandic,

Alosa Sapiddisima.

Rich worlds of Omega-3

fatty acids, minerals and elements,

phosphorus, copper, magnesium, zinc,

traces of tryptophan.

Sought with anchor nets, purse seiners,

pelagic trawlers, brought to land

for gutting by lasses with bandaged fingers

and sharp knives, all ready for pickling.

All except me. Forget your sacrificial saltings,

your praise-poem droolings,

the cast-iron altar with lemon adornments.

I am herring. Atlantic-thread. Inedible.

 (First published in Coffee House Magazine)