As Though We Were Flying
Days like sodden logs line up in the rain.
Here’s to the few times we go
with the grain of our own life,
and know it as wood knows the cutting edge,
the arc and the aim,
only as it splits wide open.
(from 'A swing of an axe')
My 19th book, I think. I'm chuffed about it, for poetry remains my true love - along wi music - my core activity.
Like 'At the Loch of the Green Corrie', it seems to be mostly a book of praises and elegies, what Norman MacCaig called 'honey and salt', for what has been and is. AG
BOOK BLURB: This is a book of awakenings – to loss and renewal, to present and past and place. To dailiness, mortality and marriage. Playful or serious, colloquial or formal, they speak directly of life lived. Celebratory or elegiac, whether set in Orkney, Spain, coastal Fife or Edinburgh, Andrew Greig’s poems are acts of attention, when the mind wakes up and the world snaps into focus. They invite the same pleasure in the reader. It is published by Bloodaxe Books.
‘Andrew Greig is a Scottish poet of sensitivity and resilience. He deals with high-risk situations – from mountaineering to love – and is particularly good at presenting the gamut of feelings involved in rites of passage: high endeavour, commitment, holding back, drift, release’ – Edwin Morgan.
‘When I first read the poems, I started writing down the ones I was really impressed by, but I gave that up after I’d written down 4 of the first 5. I doubt if there is a weak one in the collection. They interest me for their subject-matter and use of it – very subtle, often very unexpected, always on a nicely serious level, not without wit’ – Norman MacCaig.
‘A lyric poet of rare gusto’ – Peter Porter, Observer.
‘There is little doubt he is one of Scotland’s major writers’ – New Statesman.
'You could easily make the case that Andrew Greig has the greatest range of any living Scottish writer' - The Scotsman
‘It is now a commonplace to say that most exciting new writing comes from north of the Border. If further proof were needed, Greig provides it’ – Erica Wagner, The Times.
To buy the book, or to find out more about the publisher, please click HERE.
To read a review of the book please click HERE.
Here’s to the few times we go
with the grain of our own life,
and know it as wood knows the cutting edge,
the arc and the aim,
only as it splits wide open.
(from 'A swing of an axe')
My 19th book, I think. I'm chuffed about it, for poetry remains my true love - along wi music - my core activity.
Like 'At the Loch of the Green Corrie', it seems to be mostly a book of praises and elegies, what Norman MacCaig called 'honey and salt', for what has been and is. AG
BOOK BLURB: This is a book of awakenings – to loss and renewal, to present and past and place. To dailiness, mortality and marriage. Playful or serious, colloquial or formal, they speak directly of life lived. Celebratory or elegiac, whether set in Orkney, Spain, coastal Fife or Edinburgh, Andrew Greig’s poems are acts of attention, when the mind wakes up and the world snaps into focus. They invite the same pleasure in the reader. It is published by Bloodaxe Books.
‘Andrew Greig is a Scottish poet of sensitivity and resilience. He deals with high-risk situations – from mountaineering to love – and is particularly good at presenting the gamut of feelings involved in rites of passage: high endeavour, commitment, holding back, drift, release’ – Edwin Morgan.
‘When I first read the poems, I started writing down the ones I was really impressed by, but I gave that up after I’d written down 4 of the first 5. I doubt if there is a weak one in the collection. They interest me for their subject-matter and use of it – very subtle, often very unexpected, always on a nicely serious level, not without wit’ – Norman MacCaig.
‘A lyric poet of rare gusto’ – Peter Porter, Observer.
‘There is little doubt he is one of Scotland’s major writers’ – New Statesman.
'You could easily make the case that Andrew Greig has the greatest range of any living Scottish writer' - The Scotsman
‘It is now a commonplace to say that most exciting new writing comes from north of the Border. If further proof were needed, Greig provides it’ – Erica Wagner, The Times.
To buy the book, or to find out more about the publisher, please click HERE.
To read a review of the book please click HERE.