Thursday, December 11, 2008

December's been as hectic as usual, not much time for writing poems though I've got a good collection of odds and ends waiting to be turned into poems.

I flicked through the latest Poetry Scotland which came in the post this morning only to find a wee poem of mine in it which I had submitted around three months ago and had never heard anything back about! So that was a surprise, a very nice one! It was my Gantocks poem which I retitled 'Who Am I' as suggested by honest man.

I have all my lovely new books in front of me. The W.S Graham collected is one I've been waiting to get my hands on for a long time. He was brought up in Greenock which is just across the Clyde from me, where some of my relatives live and where I spent many a weekend staying with my grandparents. So I'm particularly interested in his Greenock poems and delighted to find a poem which mentions Dunoon, the town I live in!

I want to write some thoughts on Hugh McMillan's latest poetry collection, Postcards from the Hedge, which I've been recently enjoying. It's a gorgeously produced book containing fifteen poems, each poem is accompanied by a full page black and white illustratory drawing by the artist Hugh Bryden.

This collection of poems illustrates the breadth of style in McMillan's work that I've really come to admire. He writes, with apparent ease, some very funny, and very 'Scottish' poetry. He also writes beautiful, tender poems. His use of imagery in 'Romantic Break in the Rainy Season' is surprising yet so deliciously accurate: "we are slow as salamanders. / We leave wet lip marks, / and footprints sunk on the stairs.", and the playful "Our children gurgle like little reeds in rapids".
McMillan's skilled use of imagery fills his work with really lovely lines. In 'Beech Loch February 2008' he writes "the treetops laid like matting / thick enough to walk across the sky" - again, so fresh yet so exact. This poem ends with a surprisingly evocative yet unsettling tone that becomes a familiar feature in some of his, particularly landscape, poems:

the breeze rattles leaves like tin,
and we shiver, shake our heads,
as if we'd been dreaming
that a God has left the wood."

The unsettling tone is particularly strong in 'Lochinver'. The narrator is in a phonebox at night by the sea, in the middle of a storm which "howls like a dog", and where "in orange fog, / a ship spews out whiskery fish". The use of end-rhymes and half-rhymes in this poem (I particularly like 'fish/Dumfries' and 'schooner/sailor') intensifies the tone and creates a sense of inevitability about the poem which ends with the understated yet extremely effective:

"and the rain sounds like drums
in this bubble of yellow light,
emptiness everywhere like the tide."

Out of the funny poems, my favorite has to be 'My Feet':

"My feet think my head's had it easy,
up there in the fresh air all these years,
talking crap."

And the ending, which makes me laugh everytime I read it:

"I think if my feet ever met my head again
they'd give it a good kicking."

I haven't even mentioned the fact that McMillan is a history teacher and many of his funny poems take the rip out of Scottish history, in a gentle teasing way of course!

Unfortunately, from what I can gather, all 300 of Postcards from the Hedge have been sold out - this tells you how good he is, it was only printed a few months back. However you can get a hold of some of his earlier collections, see details on his blog, plus you can read some of his poems on his blog also. I've recently ordered McMillan's Aphrodite's Anorak and looking forward to getting into it.

15 comments:

Rachel Fox said...

Yes, 'Postcards' is a great book. Some publisher should put out a load more. Anyone out there?

Colin Will said...

I was going to mention the Poetry Scotland poem Sorlil. I got my copy last week, and I thought - I know this author's nom de blogue! (Have I invented a new phrase here?)

Rob said...

There were a few copies on sale at the Poetry Fair last night, so it hasn't quite sold out.

My copy of Poetry Scotland has just arrived. I haven't even flicked through it yet, but I will soon.

Marion McCready said...

yes, you should know rachel!!

hi colin, I do believe you have invented a new phrase and I rather like it!

hi rob, thanks for that.

Rachel Fox said...

I meant to say...the 'My feet' poem is one of the ones we recorded so it's on YouTube.

Marion McCready said...

so it is, and worth watching as well!

Anonymous said...

I have a couple in the new PS too, but I haven't had chance to have a look yet. I'll be looking out for your poem for sure! x

Marion McCready said...

thankyou, yes I saw that, and I enjoyed reading them, particularly 'The Mermaid and The Sailors'.

Dave King said...

Congratulations on getting in Poetry Scotland. No mean fet, but well deserved. You must let us know hw you get on with the Graham. It is one of my most used books. I think you will enjoy him.

Marion McCready said...

thanks, dave! yes I'm liking what I've read so far, looking forward to getting the chance to really get stuck into the collected.

Hugh McMillan said...

Thank you for honouring my squibs, madam, and congratulations on your PS poem.

Marion McCready said...

why thankyou shug!

McGuire said...

I have a copy of Hugh too. A rather sobering and straight foward book, which is more than welcome, in my hectic mind.

Good review, Sorlil.

deemikay said...

Just saying hello... :)

And I love my WS Graham Collected as well... I stayed in Port Glasgow for a few months when I was about 10 and my mother is from that area and the images of the Clyde (most especially in The Nightfishing) take me back to that strange culture-shocked time. (I had been in Southern Africa for five years before that!)

Marion McCready said...

thanks mcguire!

hi deemikay, how interesting. yes, I'll be glad when all the december mania is over and I actually get a chance to get into it!