Reviews of Briny
Added at 15:10 on 01 December 2024
My most recent poetry book, Briny, seems to be filling a need in people's lives for poetry about the sea. It's always lovely when people get in touch to tell me what they have found in my book. The most exciting response so far, was when the artist Claire Crombie found my poem 'Song of the Barnacle' and used it as the basis of an art installation at An Talla Solais in Ullapool earlier this year.
Almost as fulfilling as folk coming across my book and getting in touch or responding creatively is the discovery that it has been reviewed and written about by another poet or scholar, especially when they appreciate it! I've recently spotted two of these: one by Matthew MacDonald in Bottle Imp and one by Ann Macleod in Northwords Now.
Ann desribes my poetry style as 'spare and easy' and that makes me very happy - I do a lot of editing to try to remove the high-falutin guff and clutter and make my poetry clear and approachable. When I launched Briny at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) near Oban, a scientist walked up to me afterwards and said that usually he found poetry difficult, but that he understood mine on first hearing, and he bought three copies to give to other scientists. This matters a lot to me!