Collected Poems

by Norman MacCaig

A new edition of the complete poems of Norman MacCaig, published to mark his 80th birthday. It contains all the material from the previous edition, plus the poems of Voice-Over (1988) and all the poems he has written since - almost 700 poems altogether.

Genres: Poetry

Hardcover

First published August 19, 1985

About the author

MacCaig was born in Edinburgh and divided his time, for the rest of his life, between his native city and Assynt in the Scottish Highlands. He registered as a conscientious objector during World War II. In 1967 he was appointed Fellow in Creative Writing at Edinburgh. He became a reader in poetry in 1970, at the University of Stirling.

Reviews

[Boy Blue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the definitive collection of MacCaig's poems. There's some beauties in here. There's a fair bit of drek too but nothing truly terrible.

What's most interesting to me is to see MacCaig's growth and transformation as a poet.

Like Julian Carax in the Shadow of the Wind MacCaig did his absolute best to destroy his first two collections Far Cry and The Inward Eye. They were written in the New Apocalyptic style, which is very much what it sounds like; sound and fury, signifying nothing. Due to his rather successful efforts they don't feature in this anthology or anywhere else really. Thankfully, he abandoned the New Apocalyptic methods and left us a legacy of great Scottish poetry and is particularly peerless in his description of the Highlands where he spent half his life.

So we see MacCaig in 1955, at the age of 45, publishing what we'll call his first collection Riding Lights with strict form, rhyme, and metre. Then we get to watch with glee as he casts off those shackles and focuses on the big music, the sound of the land. You can feel him getting better as he goes, and the highs get higher but the collections as a whole don't improve a huge amount until A Round of Applause when he really hits his straps and turns in a near flawless collection. Unfortunately. he doesn't surpass that high tide line until much later in life. He still writes some incredible individual poems but no collection matches A Round of Applause until at the age of 70 he turns in The Equal Skies, followed by another banger in A World of Difference. Both are much bleaker than some of his earlier work but that charges the poems with some real poignancy.

There are two forces that drive MacCaig's poems, he has the academic life as a fellow of creative writing in Edinburgh and then he has the eternal spring of his life in Assynt. Some of his intellectual musings, and journeys inward are compelling but none of them soar like his poetry of the Highlands.

The lessons MacCaig teaches us from his seat in the Highlands hit harder than anything he can transmit from the dusty tomes of the capital.

There are more reasons for hills
Than being steep and reaching only high.

Time and again MacCaig nails his depiction of the Highlands and all it holds.

From the poem...

Heron

It stands in water, wrapped in heron. It makes
An absolute exclusion of everything else
By disappearing in itself, yet is the presence
Of hidden pools and secret, reedy lakes.
It twirls small fish from the bright water flakes.

or the poem

Rhu Mor

Gannets fall like the heads of tridents
bombarding the green silk water
off Rhu Mor.

He loves his frogs. And he's funny, very funny....

Frogs

Frogs sit more solid
than anything sits. In mid-leap they are
parachutists falling
in a free fall. They die on roads
with arms across their chests and
heads high.

I love frogs that sit
like Buddha, that fall without
parachutes, that die
like Italian tenors.

Above all, I love them because,
pursued in water, they never
panic so much that they fail
to make stylish traingles
with their ballet dancer's
legs.

As he ages you can sense that many of his loved ones are crossing that low stone wall. But rather than despair in loss, MacCaig finds solace in memory, and inspiration for some of his best work.

The final three stanzas of Triple Burden are mythic, they somehow evoke charon's ferry, Lord of the Rings, the travels of Sparrowhawk, and a mythic Celtic history all in one.

....For a boat has sailed into
the sea of unknowing
you are on board.

And somewhere another boat
rocks
by another pier.

It's waiting to take me
where I'll never know you again -
a voyage
beyond knowledge, beyond memory.

And then there's this lovely little poem that sums up so much of MacCaig's life and work. The balance between his two halves and it's clear which half is the more important.

Below the Clisham, Isle of Harris: after many years

On the mountain pass to Maraig
I met an old woman
darker but only just
than the bad weather we were in.

She was leading a cow by a rope
all the way round the mountain
to Tarbert.

She spoke to me in a misty voice,
glad to rest, glad to exercise
her crippled, beautiful English

Then they trudged on, tiny
in a murky space
between the cloud of the Clisham
and a tumbledown burn.

And I suddenly was back home again
as though she were her people's history
and I one of her descendants.

My edition doesn't include his last few collections and I'll be going to Scotland to track them down in a month's time. Scores for the individual collections are below but get yourself the collected poems and you can enjoy them all. If you're short of time; A Round of Applause, The Equal Skies, and A World of Difference are the best ones to read.

Riding Lights. 1955. Age 45 - 3/5
The Sinai Sort. 1957. Age 47 - 3/5
A Common Grace. 1960. Age 50 - 3/5
A Round of Applause. 1962. Age 52 - 4/5
Measures. 1965. Age 55 - 3/5
Surroundings. 1967. Age 57 - 3/5
Rings on a Tree. 1968. Age 58 - 3/5
A Man in My Position. 1969. Age 59 - 3/5
The White Bird. 1973. Age 63 - 3/5
The World's Room. 1974. Age 64 - 2/5
Tree of Strings. 1977. Age 67 - 3/5
Old Maps and New. 1978. Age 68 - 3/5
The Equal Skies. 1980. Age 70 - 4/5
A World of Difference. 1983. Age 73 - 4/5

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The early to mid poems are best. As the book goes on MacCaig’s urge to ramble takes over. The default length of his poems was around 12–14 lines; anything longer tends to flounder.

[Elliott James Fraser · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have had this book a very long time. Long before I started to get into poetry.
I was lucky enough in high school to have our class visited by Mr MacCaig and it left a lasting impression.
Never did I think I would be a poet and little did I think that I would actually enjoy poetry but here we are.
There are some delights in here and as much older man I can relate more and understand more than I could when I was much younger. Perhaps being the same age now as Norman was when he wrote some of these poem makes it all seem much clearer.
This, for someone like me, is a masterclass and I need this book like plants need sunlight.

[Stevie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful poetry, clear, insightful and drunk on the joy of words. Makes you want to write.

[Ade Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two or three a day. One of the best poets not only from Scotland but from the world.