Voices from Their Ain Countrie: The Poems of Marion Angus and Violet Jacob

by Marion Angus, Violet Jacob, Katherine Gordon (Editor)

Published in 2006, this volume marks the 60th anniversary of the deaths of two significant 20th century Scottish poets: Marion Angus and Violet Jacob. More than 200 of their passionate and radical poems are included in this comprehensive anthology, along with an overview of each poet's life, a short synopsis of major themes in their poetry, and notes on individual poems, providing an invaluable critical background for a full appreciation of their work.

Genres: Poetry

402 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Marion Emily Angus was a Scottish writer who wrote poetry in Scots. Her prose writings were mainly in English. She is seen as a forerunner of a Scottish Renaissance in inter-war poetry, as her verse marked a departure from the tradition of Robert Burns in a direction similar to that of Hugh MacDiarmid, Violet Jacob and others.

The daughter of a United Presbyterian Kirk minister, Angus grew up in Arbroath, and later lived in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Helensburgh, dying in Arbroath.

The first important published work by Marion Angus was a biography of her grandfather: Sheriff Watson of Aberdeen: the Story of his Life and his Work for the Young (1913). She did not begin to write poetry until after 1918. Her first volume, written in Scots, was The Lilt, which came out in 1922, about the same time as MacDiarmid's first experiments in the Dunfermline Press. The Lilt was followed by Sun and Candlelight (1927), The Singin Lass (1929) and Lost Country, and Other Verses. Maurice Lindsay edited her Selected Works in 1950.