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Northern Lights: A Poet's Sources
Northern Lights presents George Mackay Brown's writings on many of the places, people, legends and seasons that formed his vision and his work. Throughout the book, poems appear in counterpoint with prose.
Included here are memoirs of his father and mother, of friends like Ernest Marwick and 'owld Harvey o' Lea', and of legendary characters like Danny Watt and Willie Farquhar (of the Golden Slipper).
Included here are memoirs of his father and mother, of friends like Ernest Marwick and 'owld Harvey o' Lea', and of legendary characters like Danny Watt and Willie Farquhar (of the Golden Slipper).
- GenresPoetryMemoirNonfiction
336 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1999
About the author
George Mackay Brown
184 books100 followersGeorge 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....
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....
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 5, 2009
Utterly brilliant in every detail. One of my top 5 books of all time!
August 13, 2017
Northern LIghts is a map of the heart for anyone who's visited the Orkneys, a map of the imagination for those wanting to visit. Northern Lights was my first George Mackay Brown book and will not be my last.
June 20, 2020
This proved to be the perfect toilet book - each time picked up a different poem, piece of prose or musings on a journey, a place or history to be read and enjoyed.
I have long enjoyed George Mackay Brown's poetry, but spent far less time with his books or newspaper articles. This a welcome and thoroughly satisfying taster, which will be tasted again.
I have long enjoyed George Mackay Brown's poetry, but spent far less time with his books or newspaper articles. This a welcome and thoroughly satisfying taster, which will be tasted again.
July 28, 2014
One of the greatest and most under-appreciated writers of the 20th century. A hero to Seamus Heaney, a great folklorist, and a magnificent poet who explored one small place -- Scotland's Orkney Islands -- in depth for 50 years, from the 1940s to the 1990s.
Northern Lights is part prose, part poetry. This anthology of some of Brown's writings on Orkney folklore and history looks at the sources of his inspiration. Brown, sadly, was one of the last writers to study the old Orcadian culture in depth before so much of it vanished with modernity. His sadness at the passing of a culture that goes back almost 5000 years to the Stone Age is obvious.
Probably the best book on my "recently read" shelf right now. I had read Brown before, but this was an outstanding "skeleton key" to dig deeper into this incredibly impressive writing. Belongs absolutely on same level with Heaney and Hughes.
Time will probably show that this was Britain's greatest poet of the last half of the 20th century. Still not widely known even in Britain, but neither were Hopkins and Keats in their time.
Northern Lights is part prose, part poetry. This anthology of some of Brown's writings on Orkney folklore and history looks at the sources of his inspiration. Brown, sadly, was one of the last writers to study the old Orcadian culture in depth before so much of it vanished with modernity. His sadness at the passing of a culture that goes back almost 5000 years to the Stone Age is obvious.
Probably the best book on my "recently read" shelf right now. I had read Brown before, but this was an outstanding "skeleton key" to dig deeper into this incredibly impressive writing. Belongs absolutely on same level with Heaney and Hughes.
Time will probably show that this was Britain's greatest poet of the last half of the 20th century. Still not widely known even in Britain, but neither were Hopkins and Keats in their time.
October 17, 2013
This is a collection of writings that spans several decades of GMB's output. The reader is invited to compare the old with the later work. It includes his very last piece for The Orcadian newspaper. Often a piece of prose is followed by a poem on the same subject to show where the inspiration for the poetry came from. A significant part of the book deals with his trip to Shetland, which I have to say I found less satisfying than the normal life through the Orcadian lens you get from GMB. A minor gripe as so much of the writing is excellent. This book is probably most suited to those more familiar with the authors work.
October 29, 2013
Perfect GMB. He has given me a taste of Orkney, Shetland and ancient folklore. I love everything this man has written.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews