Ian Stephen was born in Stornoway in 1955 and still lives on Lewis. His poetry and short stories have been published in periodicals in many countries since 1979. He received a Creative Scotland Award, contributed to Zenomap (Venice Biennale 2003), and represented Scotland at ‘Poetry without Borders’ in the Czech Republic, 2004.

Among his publications are Malin, Hebrides, Minches, with photos by Sam Maynard (Dangaroo Press, Denmark, 1983), Varying States of Grace (Polygon, 1989), Mackerel & Cremola (pocketbooks, 2001), and It's about this (Nomad/ Survivors Press, 2004), from a poem-log of a voyage to Orkney, commissioned by StAnza and published on www.hi-arts.co.uk. With artist Pat Law and musician Norman Chalmers, he has devised ‘one clear line’, an exhibition of paintings, sculpture and sound about the group of islands called the Shiants, shown at the Scottish Poetry Library in the summer of 2006.

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Related links

› Ian Stephen's poem log

› Ian Stephen on Zenomap

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Featured poem

Shiants

The basking islands. The rocks
like sails or fins or teeth.

High wings are black blades
as the barnacle geese pass.

The blue men from narrations
are the grey seals, treading water.

Our cleated and welted movements go
by beaked clowns, lambing ewes.

Ian Stephen © 1983
from Malin, Hebrides, Minches (Dangaroo Press 1983)

In memory of Anna Rutherford, publisher, Dangaroo Press