Tree of Strings

by Norman MacCaig

64 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1977

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 3 out of 5]

I don't know why I assumed MacCaig would just keep getting better and better with time, like a Romanée Conti, or a bottle of Grange. But much like The World's Room, this collection seems to be off his usually high standard. Turnips which hadn't appeared at all in his previous 40 years of work are suddenly ubiquitous here. Neeps and tatties time it seems.

Most of the highlights here were stanzas not whole poems.

From

Stars and Planets

It's hard to think that the earth is one -
This poor sad bearer of wars and disasters
Rolls-Roycing round the sun with its load of gangsters,
Attended only by the loveless moon.

From

Unposted birthday card

I would like to give you
a thought like a precious stone
and precious stones a thought
couldn't think of.

Notations of ten summer minutes is close to great barring the last stanza. Here are the first few....

Notations of ten summer minutes

A boy skips flat stones out to sea - each does fine
til a small wave meets it head on and swallows it.
The boy will do the same

The schoolmaster stands looking out of the window
with one Latin eye and one Greek one.
A boat rounds the point in Gaelic.

MacCaig as I keep saying is best in nature and particularly around his second home in Assynt. In this collection the best work is about birds. Waxwing, Stonechat on Cul Beg, and Three figures of Beethoven all soar.

Three figures of Beethoven

Hawks could teach bullets a thing or two -
see one precisely repeating
the terrified unpredictable zigzags
of a mountain pipit.

And gannets and aeroplanes - can a plane
turn over and backwards and
slam stunningly into the sea - to re-emerge
with a ruffle and begin unwinding
the same long spool of flight?

These are swift and beautiful. But watch
the gull, the slow flier, the airy loiterer
than can pause, dead still,
curved on the air
like a hand on a breast.