Rob A. Mackenzie was born in Glasgow. He studied law and then abandoned the possibility of significant personal wealth by switching to theology. He spent a year in Seoul, eight years in Lanarkshire, five years in Turin, and now lives in Edinburgh where he organises the Poetry at the Great Grog reading series.

His pamphlet collection, The Clown of Natural Sorrow, was published by HappenStance Press in 2005 and his first full collection, The Opposite of Cabbage, by Salt in March 2009.

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Related links

› Surroundings, Rob A MacKenzie's blog
› Happenstance Press
› Salt Publishing
› Rob writes about Paradise Lost in the Reading Room

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Books I love

An old favourite

Harmonium, Wallace Stevens's first collection from 1923, is full of incredible words, sounds, and rhythms. It's both serious and humorous, and repays reading again and again. It contains several of the 20th century's greatest poems.

A new favourite

The Collected Poems 1956-1998 by Zbigniew Herbert (translated by Alicia Valles and others) should give Poland's finest modern poet the attention he deserves. It's around 600 pages long and, remarkably, there are hardly any weak poems. A brilliant book.

A current interest

Gloria: Selected Poems by Selima Hill couldn't have been written by anyone else. She has a unique style which combines a love of absurdity with strong emotional content. If anyone suggests that modern poetry is boring, give them a Selima Hill collection and they won't be saying that for long!

Rob A MacKenzie, March 2009

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Glory Box

for Anne

For his forty-third birthday party he blows up
an adult bouncy castle and entertains his guests
with old trip hop covers on acoustic guitar,

Give me a reason to love you… An hour later
we make our excuses. Love is difficult enough
in normal circumstances but at the intersection

of theology and real life, where the angel Barbie
scours the magazine gossip, Why I Scrubbed
my Face with Brillo Pads, the hermeneutic circle

in word and sacrament steeling itself at this
latest assault on established doctrine, we find
half an afternoon to reconnect romantically

in a chic Italian snug before the question must
again be asked, Why? If tools for flagellation
weren't available, the woman had to make do

with whatever was lying around, I suggest,
but you're more impressed with the marinade
firing up the olives, and the wine, house,

but bloody fantastic. The church secretary
wants a raise and to know whether Jesus died
to forgive sin or reveal it already forgiven

as the last nail was hammered in, and is shocked
to know this was a source of nineteenth century
internal strife, I've been a temptress too long

still fogging up my head like a disputed text –
two minutes on the bouncy castle, a lifetime
with you, not long enough, theologically speaking.

Rob A MacKenzie © Salt, 2009