SusannahF

By SusannahF

The Second Life

Since returning from Mull, I have been on the look out for Scottishness, and for poetry that doesn't annoy me with its sloppy piety. (A subject for another post). This Edwin Morgan selection, a classic from 1968, is exactly what I wanted, and more. As an artefact alone it is beautiful: the typeface (12 pt Scotch Roman), the heavy paper, and this cover. My copy belonged to Morgan's friend, the concrete poet Alan Riddell, who has written his name in it & left pencil marks by favourite lines.

I love The Starlings in George Square...a lyric poem that is also wonderfully funny. Riddell marked up the last 8 lines including "They lift up the eyes, they lighten the heart/ and some day we'll decipher that sweet frenzied whistling."

The love poems catch at the heart, richer for concealment. (They were taught for years in Scottish schools without acknowledgment, or even awareness, that the addressee was male.)

Absurdity drops in unexpectedly, alongside sci-fi & a menagerie of creatures, made of sounds & the spaces between letters, & laughter. The Chinese Cat & The Hungarian Snake, anyone? Or The Chaffinch Map of Scotland?

Here is Siesta of a Hungarian Snake.

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