The Collected Poems of George Mackay Brown

Discovered this sublime author whilst on recent holiday on Orkney.

An outstanding body of work rankiing with the great poets, ancient and modern. Powerful and evocative, the haunting imagery touches the soul in a fashion gifted to the few.

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Decent condition and a very comprehensive collection. The introductions are good and as informative as as George Mackay Brown's autobiography.

I had not encountered a great deal of Mackay Brown's poetry - only a few - and was familiar with his prose. I had no idea how substantial and how wonderful his poetic work was. I love this collection.

A collection of Poems by George Mackay Brown is one of my favorite books. I dip in and out of it all the time a constant on my bedside locker.

There are so many poems in this collection, it probably represents a full year's reading. Those who read poems regularly will know that - unlike novels, plays and short stories - poems are best savoured one at a time with frequent pauses for thought.There's lots of recurring imagery in George Mackay Brown's work (seapink is one), and the imagery is so dense and rewarding that you really do need to step back to take it all in.Many of Brown's best-known poems of course feature here, including the peerless 'Hamnavoe', but there are many, many other jewels. It's hard to credit that a single writer could have been master of such a vast catalogue of imagery, characters and incidents. He must have written every day and have honed his poems rigorously.Another facet of this book that I wasn't expecting is the sheer range of Brown's style; compare, for example, the lyricism of 'Hamnavoe' with the prose poem 'King of Kings', a view of the nativity written from the perspective of the inkeeper in the form of a letter to the "Third Secretary (Security)". Thinking about that Bethlehem inn, its guests and visitors in such detail so vividly brings the scene to life that it reads like a historical document, whether or not you're a Christian.Apart from 'Hamnavoe' my personal favourites include 'Fisherman and Boy', especially 'THE DRINKERS', 'Shipwreck' and 'Thorfinn', along with many other isolated lines, phrases and images.There are a few printing anomalies, such as the occasional, apparently indiscriminate choice of quotation marks over italics and vice versa. However, that's more than made up for by typography and page breaks that rarely interrupt the look and flow of individual poems.In fact, this huge (547pp) book is almost worth owning for editors Archie Bevan and Brian Murray's introduction alone. It includes a short excerpt from Edwin Muir's foreword to Brown's 'The Storm And Other Poems' (published 1952 by the Orkney Herald), which contained these words:"Grace is what breathes warmth into beauty and tenderness into comedy."This book breathes grace, warmth, beauty, tenderness and comedy in a secret blend of each. If you don't usually read poetry, buy this book and change that now.

So good to have this. Am reading the biography, very well written.