Love Poet, Carpenter: Michael Longley at Seventy

Edited by Robin Robertson

2009 saw the seventieth birthday of Michael Longley, who is emerging as one of the most influential poets of the 21 st century. Love Poet, Carpenter: Michael Longley at Seventy (Enitharmon Press) is an astonishing book, not only in the list of fifty-odd contributors who portray him with affection and good humour, but in the quality of some of the new work included by contemporary poets like Paul Muldoon, Seamus Heaney, Leontia Flynn, Alan Gillis, Don Paterson et al. Where such a celebratory book could have been deferential and limp, Love Poet, Carpenter has an air of work still very much in progress.

SPL shelfmark: 3.Lon.Rob Reference

Rain

by Don Paterson

Don Paterson's most recent collection, Rain (Faber), is also the winner of the Forward Prize for best collection. Rain is a collection of generosity and startling grace that engages with Paterson's insistence on the ephemeral (and somewhat meaningless) nature of life, approaching at strange angles what Paterson describes as 'the dull things of the day'. Each poem has its own unflashy moment of emotional starkness and urgency.

SPL shelfmark: 3.Pat Lending
SPL shelfmark: 3.Pat Reference

Dark Matter: Poems of Space

Edited by Maurice Riordan & Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Dark Matter: Poems of Space collects a hundred poems investigating the final frontier and man's obsession with it. Opening with Gerard Manley Hopkins' 'The Starlit Night' and its exuberant first line, "Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!", the anthology is principally one of curiosity: energetic and filled with wonder. It runs from theme to theme – the moon, comets, extra terrestrial life – with no regard for chronology, throwing new and classic work together with satisfying ease.

SPL shelfmark: 2.06294 Lending
SPL shelfmark: 2.06294 Reference

Addressing The Bard: Twelve Contemporary Poets Respond To Robert Burns.

Edited by Douglas Gifford

Addressing the Bard features the efforts of twelve contemporary poets to respond to the poems of Robert Burns, placing side by side the Burns original and the modern reply – for example 'Address of Beelzebub' is followed by James Robertson's 'Beelzebub Resurfaces'. There are also fascinating commentaries that rope both poems together: Tim Turnbull's discussion of 'To A Louse' is an insightful and provocative account of a figure who we might think we know better than we really do.

A Scottish Poetry Library exclusive! Buy now from our online shop

SPL shelfmark: 3.Bur.Gif. Reference
SPL shelfmark: 3.Bur.Gif. Lending

Rabbie's Rhymes: Robert Burns for Wee Folk

by Robert Burns, James Robertson, and Karen Anne Sutherland

And since Burns is certainly not just for the advanced in age, Karen Sutherland's illustrated Rabbie's Rhymes: Robert Burns for Wee Folk (Itchy Coo) is a colourful walk through some of Burn's better known rhyming couplets, and includes a full menu for a traditional Burns' supper.

SPL shelfmark: 3.Bur.Gif. Reference
SPL shelfmark: 3.Bur.Gif. Lending

The Voice of the Poet CD series

In our newly-expanded audio holdings is The Voice of the Poet CD series, featuring six 20th century poets: WH Auden, ee cummings, TS Eliot, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes and Adrienne Rich. These venerated literary figures often read their own work with an element of self-deprecation (hearing Eliot half-singing 'London Bridge is Falling Down' is a particular joy), and sometimes shed a great deal of light on their poems.

SPL shelfmark:
3CD.Eli Reference
3CD.Cum Reference
3CD.Fro Reference
3CD.Ric Reference
3CD.Aud Reference
3CD.Hug Reference