Lydia Harris

Consider the volumes Magnus binds in the workshop on Commercial Street

with leather from Riga, linen mull
from Petersburg, paper rolled and sized
and shipped from Amsterdam.
Consider the steel needle Betsy in the bindery
jabs into folds, consider the plup
as the honed point blazes on the far side
of the cotton rag, its grain.

Lydia Harris has made her home in the Orkney island of Westray. Her first full collection, Objects for Private Devotion, was published by Pindrop in 2022 and is on the longlist for the Highland Book Prize 2022.