Sea Library

1. What’s it about?

“Where am I?” is a question British poet Jen Hadfield’s book starts with and a question she keeps returning to throughout her memoir. The book covers her time on Shetland islands since she moved there more than 20 years ago.

2. What kind of sea is inside?

The sea is many things: it’s a distance to cross to get to Shetland, it’s seasickness and fear of the depth, it’s also swimming with friends in bioluminescence, also – seabirds and animals. The sea is a part of the Shetland scenery.

3. What I loved?

An important part of life on an island is its community. Author writes, she had to learn to ask for help, to be close with neighbours. I love, where by the end of the book she is afraid that becoming more self-sufficient (having her own running water etc.), she might lose part of this intimacy with community.

4. What surprised me?

Author mentions a copy of the Shetland dictionary as a start of her journey in deciding to move to Shetland. “It rescued me from what had been an enduring creative block and made poetry feel relevant and urgent to me again.” Speaking of language, she also reflects on swearing as a way to deal with awe: “I had tears in my eyes as I swore softly, continuously. Is a swear an inadequacy of language, the moment words fail us? Or is it the purest kind of language we have, second only to singing?” British writer Philip Hoare in one of his books confesses that his only word when he saw a whale for the first time out in the sea was “fuck”. “I am my own swearing jar,” Jen Hadfield admits. 

5. What have I put into my pocket?

Hadfield confesses that her spirit animal is a barnacle and tells the amazing fact of how barnacles create ‘home scars’ on surfaces to always be able to find their way back to safety. In the book she is rooting page after page, first – falls in love with the place, then – finds a place to rent, until finally she finds her own home scar.

6. Cool fact about the author?

In 2008, Jen Hadfield became the youngest person to win the TS Eliot Prize. She is a poet and visual artist, and “Storm Pegs” is her first non-fiction book.

7. How did it arrive at the Sea Library?

As a review copy from a publisher.

Jen Hadfield “Storm Pegs: A Life Made in Shetland”. Picador, 2024

Photo by Anna Iltnere / Sea Library