The Scottish Poets

The most wide-ranging anthology of twentieth-century poetry in English and Scots available.

One of Scotland’s most celebrated poets, Robert Crawford has long been a passionate and articulate ambassador for his country and its culture, its people and its landscape. The Scottish Ambassador fuses individual and communal voices in poems that resonate far beyond their points of origin. Engaging with Zoroastrian, Chinese and Greek as well as with Scottish antecedents, Crawford’s poems have an arresting range and a lyrical energy. He negotiates with intensity and wit between a deep sense of human universals and a heartfelt fidelity to individual places. Ranging from Jerusalem to Iona, New York City to Shetland, this is a collection of international range that continually zeroes in on the particular – and the particularly Scottish. At the book’s centre is a series of intimate, funny, eloquent portraits of cities which are at once remarkable public poems and outpourings of love.

My Heart’s In the Highlands: Classic Scottish Poems is a glorious celebration of poetry and verse by the greatest classic Scottish poets, and introduced by the acclaimed poet John Glenday. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. The poems in this collection are selected by editor, Gaby Morgan. With poems from famous Scottish writers such as Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Mary Queen of Scots herself there is plenty here to enjoy and inspire. The collection roams across so many aspects of Scottish life and culture; its landscape and its history, its people and its celebrations. It’s a country that has always inspired poets to write about love, nature and heritage, and to reflect on the important things of life.

An inspiring anthology of the best of Scottish poetry to keep you company for every day of your life.A Scottish Poem for Every Day of the Year is a glorious collection of 366 poems compiled by Gaby Morgan. Reflecting the changing seasons and marking key dates in the Scottish calendar - from Burns Night to the Edinburgh Hogmanay - these poems are powerful, thoughtful, and will give you a new reason to love Scotland every day of the year.This collection is bursting at the seams with the strongest voices in Scottish poetry: Robert Burns, George Mackay Brown and Sir Walter Scott sit alongside Liz Lockhead, Don Paterson and Jackie Kay to deliver magic on every page that lasts a whole year!

The comparative study of the literatures of Ireland and Scotland has emerged as a distinct and buoyant field in recent years. This collection of new essays offers the first sustained comparison of modern Irish and Scottish poetry, featuring close readings of texts within broad historical and political contextualisation. Playing on influences, crossovers, connections, disconnections and differences, the 'affinities' and 'opposites' traced in this book cross both Irish and Scottish poetry in many directions. Contributors include major scholars of the new 'archipelagic' approach, as well as leading Irish and Scottish poets providing important insights into current creative practice. Poets discussed include W. B. Yeats, Hugh MacDiarmid, Sorley MacLean, Louis MacNeice, Edwin Morgan, Douglas Dunn, Seamus Heaney, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Michael Longley, Medbh McGuckian, Nuala ni Dhomhnaill, Don Paterson and Kathleen Jamie. This book is a major contribution to our understanding of poetry from these islands in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape. Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of The Living Mountain lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published.

Throw a stone in Edinburgh or Glasgow today and you'll hit a poet. The Scottish spoken word scene has exploded, reaching a level of popularity last seen in the late 1970s, another era, coincidentally, when the issue of Scottish self-determination was in the air. A generation of poets has emerged who have grown up in an age of change, political and technological, with the internet providing them not only with new ways of sharing writing - through their websites, podcasts, Twitter - but also in some cases with a subject too. It's a scene where you are just as liable to encounter ancient gods as you are video game characters. This book is a survey, a yearbook, a celebration, and a promise of things to come.

New essays on Burns' special place in Scottish, English and Irish literary cultureIn this volume, 17 leading Burns scholars, poetry critics and practising poets reflect on the enduring significance of one of the most important poets of the 18th century. They show that Burns was a highly innovative and technically accomplished poet, as capable of transforming earlier traditions as of launching new literary trends.Looks at Burns' place amongst his literary predecessors, contemporaries and heirs, including:* Scottish poets such as Ramsay, Fergusson, Byron, Hogg, MacDiarmid, Paterson, Dunn & Mackay Brown* English poets such as Milton, Addison, Gray & Wordsworth* Classical writers such as Virgil* Irish poets such as Merriman, Goldsmith, Dermody & HeaneyBy looking at Burns in the context of other poets, each chapter sheds new lighton his own practices and the practice of poetry in general. They investigate the political, national, philosophical and ethical aspects of his poetry, showing how you can deepen