Selected Poems

by Mick Imlah

Mick Imlah's second and long-awaited collection The Lost Leader was published to acclaim in 2008, shortly before his early death in January 2009. The present retrospect connects the work of three decades, drawing upon Imlah's earlier full-length collection, Birthmarks (1988), but also including uncollected poems and previously unpublished work. The Lost Leader won the Forward Prize and revealed a poet of dazzling virtuosity, eloquence and subtlety - breaking through, as Imlah said of Edwin Muir (whose poems he selected in his last year) 'to a field of unforced imaginative fluency and an unexpected common cause'. Edited by Mark Ford and with an essay by Alan Hollinghurst, the Selected Poems brings together the best work of a poet who can now be seen, with increasing clarity, as a 'lost leader' of Scottish poetry in our time.

Genres: Poetry

193 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 4, 2010

About the author

Michael Ogilvie Imlah, better known as Mick Imlah, was a Scottish poet and editor.

Imlah was brought up in Milngavie near Glasgow, before moving to Beckenham, Kent in 1966. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he subsequently taught as a Junior Fellow. He was editor of Poetry Review from 1983-6, and worked at the Times Literary Supplement from 1992.

His collection The Lost Leader (2008) won the Forward Prize for Best Collection, and was shortlisted for the 2009 International Griffin Poetry Prize.

Imlah died in January 2009 aged 52 as a result of motor neurone disease. He was diagnosed with this disease in December of 2007.

Reviews

[Eilidh Fyfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

ok i have a whole appreciation for mick now
shoutout to the Stephen boyd poem
shoutout to the Maren and iona poems
I get upset about his life
Go mick

[māris šteinbergs · Rating 2 out of 5]

yeah, mediocracy is insufferable

[Joel Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun enough, and seems like a good way to get into contemporary Scottish poetry. It may grow on me with time.

[Harj D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mick Imlah's talent for storytelling in verse is undeniable and there were many pieces which really captured my attention, which I also immediately re-read. However this is definitely not a collection that you can sit and read in one go. The depth and intelligence in which Mick explores within his writing requires time, focus, and your full undivided attention. If you enjoy stories written in verse and poetry which is lengthy and filled with wonder and intrigue, this is a collection for you.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've only read the first half of this book (the poems that were from Imlah's first collection, Birthmarks) but I love it so far.

[J.S. Watts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poems of high craft and technique, intellectual rather than emotional (on the whole) and with a focus on story-telling.