Other Worlds: An Anthology of Scottish Island Poems

by Stewart Conn (Editor)

An island can be a source of escape or return, of solace or threat.

In Other Worlds, editor Stewart Conn has sought poems to set the readers' heart racing, through a sharpening of memory or in opening new vistas and evoking new worlds and states of mind, from Barra and Eriskay to Luing, Mingulay and the Isle of May; Inchcape and the Torren rocks to Taransay and Tiree.

In this anthology rich depictions of island flora and fauna sit alongside sightings of croft dwellers and ferry-lowpers. Expressions of affection and accounts of imprisonment and bereavement sit cheek-by-jowl with evocations of drowned sailors, corporeal and ghostly. Praise poems alternate with diary entries and holiday postcards. Others cover stretches of water: Corrievrecken, say, or the Minch. And while there is a recurring sense of island heritage, and of belonging, the poet's feet need not be actively on island soil or on the deck of a fishing-boat.

Genres: Poetry

176 pages, Paperback

Published July 5, 2022

About the author

Stewart Conn is a Scottish poet and playwright, born in Hillhead, Glasgow. His father was a minister Kelvinside Church but the family moved to Kilmarnock, Ayrshire in 1941 when he was five. During the 1960s and 1970s, he worked for the BBC at their offices off Queen Margaret Drive and moved to Edinburgh in 1977, where until 1992 he was based as BBC Scotland's Head of Radio Drama. He was the inaugural Edinburgh City Makar from 2002 to 2005.

Reviews

[Carol Blankenship · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful book with poetry that moves you by the use of words, culture, history, descriptive images and the beauty of Scotland.