Selected PoetryNew Directions Publishing, 1993 - 289 pages Hugh MacDiarmid's Selected Poetry is an invaluable introduction to the work of a major poet who, despite the enthusiasm of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, remains little known in the United States. MacDiarmid (1892-1978), universally recognized as the greatest Scottish poet since Robert Burns and the man responsible for reviving Scots as a literary language, was also the author of an enormous body of poems in English. As the noted critic and translator Eliot Weinberger writes of MacDiarmid's work in his introduction: "There is nothing like it in modern literature, nothing even close. It is an attempt to return poetry to its original role as repository for all that a culture knows about itself." Edited by Alan Riach and the poet's son Michael Grieve, the Selected Poetry draws generously from fifty years of work, and includes the complete text of MacDiarmid's 1926 masterpiece, "A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle." |
Contents
The Windbags 1921 | 1 |
Crowdieknowe | 14 |
from To Circumjack Cencrastus or The Curly Snake 1930 | 114 |
The Weapon | 123 |
Cheville | 138 |
First Love | 156 |
As Lovers Do | 166 |
from Cornish Heroic Song for Valda Trevlyn 1939 | 186 |
Dìreadh III | 199 |
from Further Passages from The Kind of Poetry I Want 1943 | 218 |
from A Kist of Whistles 1947 | 224 |
from In Memoriam James Joyce 1955 | 240 |
from Plaited Like the Generations of Men | 254 |
from Collected Poems 1962 | 267 |
| 281 | |
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Common terms and phrases
a'thing aboot abune afore ahint aiblins aince Alexander Blok anither auld bairn benmaist bluid brocht Burns canna colour craturs Daith dark death deid doon dream earth ELIOT WEINBERGER English eternal frae Gaelic gang gangrel gi'e grey ha'e haill haud Heaven heid Heimaey hert hokum Hugh MacDiarmid human ilka ither itsel James Joyce juist kennin kythed Langholm leafs licht lift light look maist maitter mak's man's maun micht mind move muckle mune munelicht mysel nae mair naething nane never nocht ocht owre pairt poem poet poetry poo'er puir rose sall Scotland Scots Scottish Scottish National Party scrunt scunner sicht song soul spirit stars stones syne T.S. Eliot There's thing thistle thistle's thocht thrang thrawn turn warld weel wha's whaur wheesht whisky wind wumman