Hallaig and Other Poems = Hallaig agus Dàin Eile

by Sorley Maclean, Somhairle MacGill-Eain, Angus Peter Campbell (Introduced by)

This selected works of Sorley MacLean brings together published poetry from MacLean’s own edited volumes of Poetry. The poems will be given in their original Gaelic with English translations and introduced by Angus Peter Campbell and Aonghas Mac Neacail.

Sorley MacLean was born on the island of Raasay in 1911. He was brought up within a family and community immersed in Gaelic language and culture, particularly song. He studied English at Edinburgh University from 1929, taking a first-class honours degree. Despite this influence, he eventually adopted Gaelic as the medium most appropriate for his poetry. He translated much of his own work into English, opening it up to a wider public. He fought in North Africa during World War II, before taking up a career in teaching, holding posts on Mull, in Edinburgh and finally as Head Teacher at Plockton High School. Amongst other awards and honours, he received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1990. He died in 1996 at the age of 85.

Genres: Poetry

200 pages, Paperback

First published October 2, 2014

About the author

Sorley MacLean (Scottish Gaelic: Somhairle MacGill-Eain, sometimes MacGilleathain in earlier publications; 1911 – 1996) was one of the most significant Scottish poets of the 20th century. He wrote about love, heartbreak, the Cuillin, the Spanish Civil War, Hugh MacDiarmid, Communism and nationalism, often several in the same poem.

Reviews

[Cameron Wilson]

even as a relatively fluent Gaelic speaker, this is EXTREMELY hard going. The Gaelic is so difficult and archaic, and the English translations just don’t cut it

[Jon Corelis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sorley Maclean, one of the great neglected poets of the 20th century, wrote in Scots Gaelic, but his work has been extensively translated into English, often by the poet himself. Of the several of his collections in English available as of this writing, Hallaig and Other Poems would be a good place to start reading him. That his poetry, even in translation, ranges from good to unforgettably wonderful, seems to me so obvious that I don't feel I need to give much of an explanatory review. His poems often sound as if they could have been written either this week or at any time in the last four thousand years, but they all sound like poetry is supposed to be but generally isn't today:

O yellow-haired. lovely girl,
you tore my strength
and inclined my course
from its aim:
but, if I reach my place,
the high wood of the men of song,
you are the fire of my lyric --
you made a poet of me through sorrow.

I raised this pillar
on the shifting mountain of time,
but it is a memorial-stone
that will be heeded till the Deluge,
and, though you will be married to another
and ignorant of my struggle,
your glory is my poetry
after the slow rotting of your beauty.

They sure don't make them like that any more.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're into poetry that's very concerned with place and nature, MacLean's work would absolutely be for you. Unfortunately, I'm not.