Selected Poems, 1954-1992

by George Mackay Brown

Poems describe life on a remote island off the coast of northern Scotland and discuss the seasons, rural life, and religious themes

Genres: Poetry, Scotland

176 pages, Paperback

First published September 12, 1996

About the author

George Mackay Brown, the poet, novelist and dramatist, spent his life living in and documenting the Orkney Isles.

A bout of severe measles at the age of 12 became the basis for recurring health problems throughout his life. Uncertain as to his future, he remained in education until 1940, a year which brought with it a growing reality of the war, and the unexpected death of his father. The following year he was diagnosed with (then incurable) Pulmonary Tuberculosis and spent six months in hospital in Kirkwall, Orkney's main town.

Around this time, he began writing poetry, and also prose for the Orkney Herald for which he became Stromness Correspondent, reporting events such as the switching on of the electricity grid in 1947. In 1950 he met the poet Edwin Muir, a fellow Orcadian, who recognised Mackay Brown's talent for writing, and would become his literary tutor and mentor at Newbattle Abbey College, in Midlothian, which he attended in 1951-2. Recurring TB forced Mackay Brown to spend the following year in hospital, but his experience at Newbattle spurred him to apply to Edinburgh University, to read English Literature, returning to do post-graduate work on Gerard Manley Hopkins.

In later life Mackay Brown rarely left Orkney. He turned to writing full-time, publishing his first collection of poetry, The Storm, in 1954. His writing explored life on Orkney, and the history and traditions which make up Orkney's distinct cultural identity. Many of his works are concerned with protecting Orkney's cultural heritage from the relentless march of progress and the loss of myth and archaic ritual in the modern world. Reflecting this, his best known work is Greenvoe (1972), in which the permanence of island life is threatened by 'Black Star', a mysterious nuclear development.

Mackay Brown's literary reputation grew steadily. He received an OBE in 1974 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1977, in addition to gaining several honorary degrees. His final novel, Beside the Ocean of Time (1994) was Booker Prize shortlisted and judged Scottish Book of the Year by the Saltire Society. Mackay Brown died in his home town of Stromness on 13th April 1996.

He produced several poetry collections, five novels, eight collections of short stories and two poem-plays, as well as non-fiction portraits of Orkney, an autobiography, For the Islands I Sing (1997), and published journalism.

Read more at:
http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org....

Reviews

[Margie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

​It was by serendipity that I came upon this book of poems by one of Orkney Islands' esteemed poets, George Mackay Brown. A line from one of his poems published in a daily calendar caught my eye and I was happy to find this book of his poetry at my library.

My husband and I visited the Orkneys in 1998 and were captivated by its stark beauty, ancient history and fierce weather. It was one of the best trips we have ever taken and I long to go back someday. The Orkney Islands are above Scotland about an hour and a half by a sometimes very rough ferry crossing.

All of the poems in this book which Brown wrote over a span of 40 years were written in the Orkney Islands. His introduction, part of which I include below, is a poem in itself:

"More poetry has come out of Orkney than perhaps from any community of comparative size in the world.

The minglings of sea and earth - creel and plough - fish and cornstalk - shore people and shepherds - are the warp and weft that go to make the very stuff of poetry; 'the embroidered cloths' that Yeats wrote about.

More than in cities, the stars in their courses rule our comings and goings. The moon gathers the shoals, the sun sets the well-crusted bread on the tables.

Behind these perennial actions is a rich history, going far back beyond the medieval sagas of Norse Orcadians to the imaginative hewers of stone, the builders of Scarabrae, Brodgar, Maeshowe."

So, you can imagine the poems, rich and descriptive, filled with history and myth - lilting cadences to be read aloud and savored by islanders proud of their ancient history and remote beauty.

I read these poems aloud to myself as I imagined them being read to others. I certainly missed many references, being unfamiliar with much of Orkney's history, folklore and myth. I plan to read them again more slowly as I look up history of the islands.

I loved the following poems:

The "Brodgar Poems" which pay homage to the great Neolithic, stone circle built over "two or three generations at least." Brodgar was one of the places we visited and I took out my photos as I read the poems, again amazed at the scope and eerie beauty of this ancient ring. Each stanza commemorates the placement of a stone throughout centuries, starting with the third, then skipping stones/stanzas through the sequence, and ending with the fifty-second. It is estimated that the Ring of Brodgar may have had as many as sixty stones. There are wonderful photos on the first link below:

https://www.northlinkferries.co.uk/or...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of...

"William and Mareon Clark: First Innkeepers in Hamnavoe" is a three part poem paying tribute to the dreams and lives of William and Mareon Clark who might well have disappeared from Orkney history or folklore, if not for this poem. It is in three parts:

'The Opening of the Tavern, 1596'
'Sickness'
'In Memoriam'

"Farm Labourer" caused me to laugh out loud at the first line because sometimes I feel exactly like the farm labourer when I drag myself out of bed! "'God, am I not dead yet?' said Ward, his ear Meeting another dawn." Dark humor to me, not so much to him!

This book includes selections from Mackay Brown's many published collections over a span of almost forty years. There is a table of contents and a small, but wonderfully detailed map of the Orkney Islands in the front of the book and an index of first lines in the back.

The internet, being ​both​ ​bane and ​boon, led me to this book so I give it my thanks as well as thanks to the serendipitous moments that enrich our lives.

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Distrust and death but never self-pity; drowning and drama but wise. Of one place’s Vikings, fish, and pain – like Under Milk Wood without the japery and authorial distance. Seal Market is amazing; the Hamnavoe poems are so good I feel I’ve been there (which means I don’t have to go).

Brown seems stuck writing about the Middle Ages – “what are these red things like tatties? (apples)”– but then, the Middle Ages lasted right through to the 1960s, on Orkney.

And since “a circle has no beginning or end. The symbol holds: people in AD 2000 are essentially the same as the stone-breakers of 3000 BC.”

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book encapsulates everything I love in Orkney, which I've visited at least once every year since 1981, and has inspired me to make a number of prints, in particular the Brodgar Poems about the raising of the stones for the Ring of Brodgar.

The date for 'finishing' is an arbitrary one - it is a book I return to time and again. as I do with others of GMB's poetry.

[Jasmine Maia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 - love u george