The Collected Poems of George Mackay Brown

Description

George Mackay Brown is recognised as one of Scotland's greatest twentieth-century lyric poets. His work is integral to the flowering of Scottish literature over the last fifty years. Admired by many fellow poets, including Seamus Heaney and Douglas Dunn, his poems are deeply individual and unmistakable in their setting: 'the small green world' of the Orkney Islands where he lived for most of his life, with its elemental forces of sea and sky and Norse and Icelandic ancestry, is brought vividly and memorably to life. Here, his rich resonant poetry is collected in one volume, making available again many poems that are otherwise out of print.

Brian Murray read English at Glasgow University and was a teacher in the West of Scotland. With Archie Bevon he has been editing the unpublished and uncollected work of George Mackay Brown -- seven volumes to date, with an eighth just completed. Like his daughter Rowena, he was a long-term friend of the writer.

'Extraordinarily effective' -- Robert McCrum, The Observer 'A brilliant writer' -- Spectator 'George Mackay Brown really does possess the magician's touch' -- Observer 'A dazzling writer' -- The Guardian 'Undoubtedly the most important document of his work to be produced so far.' -- Shetland Times, Malachy Tallack. 'George Mackay Brown has added uniquely and steadfastly to the riches of poetry in English: his sense of the world and his way with words are powerfully at one with each other' -- Seamus Heaney 'The Collected Poems show the range and depth of his work, the beauty of it, "the undersong of terrible holy joy"' -- Scotsman 20050730 'The reader embarks on a voyage -- which is how Mackay Brown himself saw his work -- through the elemental world of his cliff-girt, craggy isles.' -- The Times, Rachel Campbell-Johnston 20050730 'Practically every poem has the bite of originality' -- TLS 20050812 'Mackay Brown was a bardic, celebratory poet who swathed all that he wrote about in a kind of caul of sacredness' -- Independent, Michael Glover 20051202 'A must-have... [Mackay Brown] transforms the mundane with a luminous lyricism' -- The Times, Rachel Campbell-Johnston 20051203 'The work has both a severe beauty and mischievous wit' -- The Sunday Times 20051203