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Northlight
Theatre
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
1 person is currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Douglas Dunn
82 books16 followersDouglas Eaglesham Dunn is a Scottish poet, academic and critic.
He was a Professor of English at the University of St Andrews from 1991, becoming Director of the University's Scottish Studies Centre in 1993 until his retirement in September 2008. He is now an Honorary Professor at St Andrews, still undertaking postgraduate supervision in the School of English. He was a member of the Scottish Arts Council (1992–1994). He holds an honorary doctorate (LL.D., law) from the University of Dundee, an honorary doctorate (D.Litt., literature) from the University of Hull and St Andrews. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1981, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2003. Terry Street, Dunn's first collection of poems, appeared in 1969 and received a Scottish Arts Council Book Award as well as a Somerset Maugham Award.
He was a Professor of English at the University of St Andrews from 1991, becoming Director of the University's Scottish Studies Centre in 1993 until his retirement in September 2008. He is now an Honorary Professor at St Andrews, still undertaking postgraduate supervision in the School of English. He was a member of the Scottish Arts Council (1992–1994). He holds an honorary doctorate (LL.D., law) from the University of Dundee, an honorary doctorate (D.Litt., literature) from the University of Hull and St Andrews. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1981, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2003. Terry Street, Dunn's first collection of poems, appeared in 1969 and received a Scottish Arts Council Book Award as well as a Somerset Maugham Award.
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October 18, 2022not up to Elegies but that was one of those collections that kind of ruined its poet. Still there's a good time in Northlight he's got more appreciation for the apocalyptics than some would suggest & DD has been at his GMH I think. A sort of blender of Gerard Marvell his Larkin love and the better sides of Muldoon. Anyway I quite like Here and There even if the epigraph is literally Woody Allen and I do think it slides into romanticising Dundee a little too far. Talent rides all the same
July 22, 2023
Lyrical evocations of Tayside sit alongside poems inspired by Australia and Italy. Some political views I may mot share are, nevertheless, expressed with powerful conviction rooted in a love for the very essence of a particular corner of the Scottish east coast.
An impressive ability to turn everything from the inventor of the Saxophone’s disappointment to the phenomenon of dieback into compelling poetry. A skilled craftsman produces a fine collection.
An impressive ability to turn everything from the inventor of the Saxophone’s disappointment to the phenomenon of dieback into compelling poetry. A skilled craftsman produces a fine collection.
February 25, 2013
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Northlight. I’d only encountered Douglas Dunn before in anthologies and remember finding his work somewhat impenetrable, so it was a pleasant surprise to find this book to be relatively accessible.
Dunn has a real talent in building up a scene and painting a full, atmospheric picture. Many of these poems are set in his home by the Firth of Tay and he takes great pleasure in bringing to life places that perhaps wouldn’t seen natural material for poetry – rail bridges, grey estuaries, minor ruins. I willingly followed him into this landscape.
In ‘Daylight,’ for instance, Dunn describes Buddon Ness, an area of sandbanks on the Tay Estuary:
“The big white arms of dawn are cool
In their embrace, and merciful
First blue dispels the estuary’s
Possessive, tenemented greys.”
I felt like Dunn’s landscape was a landscape of greys, but a landscape where sunlight peeked through the clouds and lit up the sea, the rain and the land. Perhaps this is what the word Northlight means. It feels like a Scottish landscape; it feels like it’s Dunn’s landscape and he cares about it. After several of these poems I cared about it too. He captures this feeling beautifully in ‘Here and There’:
“You say it’s mad to love this east-coast weather -
I’ll praise it, though, and claim its subtle light’s
Perfect for places that abut on water
Where swans on tidal aviaries preen their whites.”
Yet Northlight isn’t only set in Scotland. In other parts of the book Dunn takes us on journeys to far-flung parts of the world, and this creates some fascinating contrasts and new focal points of interest as you work through the poems.
In ‘A House in the Country,’ the narrator enters a crumbling house in rural Italy and imagines meeting (or is it imagines being?) the occupant:
“Webs fold and curdle in the sunlit wind’s
Expulsion of the shadows, and a man
Appears from nowhere or the mind’s
Liberty to be more than one.”
This is also a poem that begins with the simple sentence: “Not Scotland.” Just in case we weren’t sure that we’d moved to another country!
In ‘Dieback,’ the setting is Australia, and Dunn compares this alien landscape to his native Scotland. You can hear the uncertainty in his descriptions of a place with which he is less at home: “nature here is angrier than / Than sanity can bear to contemplate.”
These are perfectly good poems in their own right, but I felt myself pining to get back to Dunn’s familiar grey estuaries, his ‘Northlight.’ Well, the poems do return to Scotland, although towards the end of the collection they become more overtly political and even Scottish-nationalistic. In ‘The Dark Crossroads’ the Scottish narrator sees his identity through the eyes of the customers of an English pub and feels himself revolting against it, his “bloodlust / soured into ink.”
There’s the odd poem in here that’s a total departure from the topics mentioned above. This review wouldn’t be complete without a mention of ‘An Address to Adolphe Sax in Heaven,’ an delightful, jaunty elegy to the inventor of the saxophone. These departures add interesting structure to the collection as a whole, and kept me interested throughout the 81 pages.
Overall, this is a collection full of strong poems. My favourites and the ones that will make me revisit this book are the evocations of the east Scottish landscape and the associations of history and identity that Dunn weaves into these. But there are plenty of gems scattered throughout these pages.
I’d heartily recommend Northlight to anyone. Just be prepared to spend a bit of time with each poem, letting Dunn build up his scene and letting yourself get drawn into it. You’ll feel part of his landscapes, his characters, and most importantly his identity – and really what more can you ask from a poem?
Five Words that describe this book: grey, Scottish, evocative, proud, complete.
Stand Out Poems: ‘Here and There’; ‘An Address to Adolphe Sax in Heaven’; ‘Memory and Imagination.’
Killer Line: “Skin looked like this two hundred years ago.” (from ‘Love-making by Candlelight’)
Dunn has a real talent in building up a scene and painting a full, atmospheric picture. Many of these poems are set in his home by the Firth of Tay and he takes great pleasure in bringing to life places that perhaps wouldn’t seen natural material for poetry – rail bridges, grey estuaries, minor ruins. I willingly followed him into this landscape.
In ‘Daylight,’ for instance, Dunn describes Buddon Ness, an area of sandbanks on the Tay Estuary:
“The big white arms of dawn are cool
In their embrace, and merciful
First blue dispels the estuary’s
Possessive, tenemented greys.”
I felt like Dunn’s landscape was a landscape of greys, but a landscape where sunlight peeked through the clouds and lit up the sea, the rain and the land. Perhaps this is what the word Northlight means. It feels like a Scottish landscape; it feels like it’s Dunn’s landscape and he cares about it. After several of these poems I cared about it too. He captures this feeling beautifully in ‘Here and There’:
“You say it’s mad to love this east-coast weather -
I’ll praise it, though, and claim its subtle light’s
Perfect for places that abut on water
Where swans on tidal aviaries preen their whites.”
Yet Northlight isn’t only set in Scotland. In other parts of the book Dunn takes us on journeys to far-flung parts of the world, and this creates some fascinating contrasts and new focal points of interest as you work through the poems.
In ‘A House in the Country,’ the narrator enters a crumbling house in rural Italy and imagines meeting (or is it imagines being?) the occupant:
“Webs fold and curdle in the sunlit wind’s
Expulsion of the shadows, and a man
Appears from nowhere or the mind’s
Liberty to be more than one.”
This is also a poem that begins with the simple sentence: “Not Scotland.” Just in case we weren’t sure that we’d moved to another country!
In ‘Dieback,’ the setting is Australia, and Dunn compares this alien landscape to his native Scotland. You can hear the uncertainty in his descriptions of a place with which he is less at home: “nature here is angrier than / Than sanity can bear to contemplate.”
These are perfectly good poems in their own right, but I felt myself pining to get back to Dunn’s familiar grey estuaries, his ‘Northlight.’ Well, the poems do return to Scotland, although towards the end of the collection they become more overtly political and even Scottish-nationalistic. In ‘The Dark Crossroads’ the Scottish narrator sees his identity through the eyes of the customers of an English pub and feels himself revolting against it, his “bloodlust / soured into ink.”
There’s the odd poem in here that’s a total departure from the topics mentioned above. This review wouldn’t be complete without a mention of ‘An Address to Adolphe Sax in Heaven,’ an delightful, jaunty elegy to the inventor of the saxophone. These departures add interesting structure to the collection as a whole, and kept me interested throughout the 81 pages.
Overall, this is a collection full of strong poems. My favourites and the ones that will make me revisit this book are the evocations of the east Scottish landscape and the associations of history and identity that Dunn weaves into these. But there are plenty of gems scattered throughout these pages.
I’d heartily recommend Northlight to anyone. Just be prepared to spend a bit of time with each poem, letting Dunn build up his scene and letting yourself get drawn into it. You’ll feel part of his landscapes, his characters, and most importantly his identity – and really what more can you ask from a poem?
Five Words that describe this book: grey, Scottish, evocative, proud, complete.
Stand Out Poems: ‘Here and There’; ‘An Address to Adolphe Sax in Heaven’; ‘Memory and Imagination.’
Killer Line: “Skin looked like this two hundred years ago.” (from ‘Love-making by Candlelight’)
June 22, 2016
A beautiful volume of poetry. Dunn perfectly manages the poetic balancing act of making the parochial universal without losing the very definite sense of place. I've only passed through Dundee on the train, but Dunn brings out his deep love of the city against those who would scorn it. "Here and There" being a heartfelt response to the, real of perceived, criticisms of those who thinks he is priming the parish pump. There is great variety here in subject matter, style and length. It's probably not fanciful to see the influence of his erstwhile colleague, Philip Larkin. There's barely a weak poem in the collection.
August 25, 2013
This collection seemed uneven to me—some standout, stellar pieces, and some I found too personal and irrelevant (though I suppose some readers like that style of poetry).
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews