Synopses & Reviews
Praise for
The Wrecking Light “Robertson’s lines have the luminosity of myth. The Wrecking Light is a work of extraordinary visionary power, its music bleak and beautiful, spare and unsparing.”—Guardian (UK)
“Breathtaking, utterly and heartbreakingly breathtaking.”—Globe and Mail
Robin Robertson’s fourth collection is an intense experience: moving, bleakly lyrical, and at times shocking. These poems are written with the authority of classical myth, yet sound utterly contemporary. The poet’s gaze—whether on the natural world or the personal—is unflinching and clear, its utter seriousness leavened by a wry, dry, and disarming humor. Alongside fine translations from Neruda and Montale and dynamic retellings of stories from Ovid, the poems here pitch the power and wonder of nature against the frailty and failure of the human. This is a book of considerable grandeur and sweep that confirms Robertson as one of the most arresting and powerful poets at work today.
Robin Robertson is the author of three previous books of poetry, A Painted Field, Slow Air, and Swithering. He is the recipient of the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among other honors. “At Roane Head,” in this collection, won the 2009 Forward Poetry Prize for Best Single Poem. He lives in London.
Review
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
SLOW AIR"Each poem comes to us so cleansed of excess, so concentrated and perfectly pared down to its essence we can only wonder at the adamantine sharpness of its edges."--Billy Collins, Poet Laureate of the United States
PRAISE FOR ROBIN ROBERTSON
"Robin Robertson is instantly recognizable as a poet of vivid authority, commanding a surprised, accurate language of his own."--W. S. Merwin
"The genius of this Scots poet is for finding the sensually charged moment . . . and depicting it in language that is simultaneously spare and ample."--The New Yorker
Review
"Robertson's fourth collection is astonishing in its eclecticism..." Publishers Weekly "There's a drama and majesty here that also teaches us a lesson: That a writer, a poet especially, has the power to make an act of recovery. In "Leaving St. Kilda" Robertson recalls all those unique, old names (and who, by the way, first named them?) before they're lost — before the clouds stream over them, as they do over Mullach Mòr, and they're forgotten. Elsewhere in this somber, beautiful collection, Robertson does the same with smaller, fleeting moments of insight as his speakers confront the passing of time — how, for instance, in "Landfall," the "crates that once held herring,/ freshly dead, now hold distance, nothing but the names/ of the places I came from, years ago." Los Angeles Times
Review
"The reader is almost blinded by the incandescent authority of these poems."-The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Robin Robertson is instantly recognizable as a poet of vivid authority, commanding a surprised, accurate language of his own. . . . This is a first book of extraordinary gifts and assured maturity."-W. S. Merwin
Review
PRAISE FOR ROBIN ROBERTSON
"Each poem comes to us so cleansed of excess, so concentrated and perfectly pared down to its essence we can only wonder at the adamantine sharpness of its edges."-BILLY COLLINS
"The genius of this Scots poet is for finding the sensually charged moment-in a raked northern seascape, in a sexual or gustatory encounter-and depicting it in language that is simultaneously spare and ample."-THE NEW YORKER
Review
"Robertson's genius for exact and gorgeous imagery, his dazzling metaphorical gift, and the knottiness of his thinking ... runs through the syntax of the verse like a bead of Metaphysical quicksilver."
Synopsis
Strongly rooted in the wonders of the natural world, this collection of poems strikes a balance along the mind's boundaries, looking outward and inward. Combining a cool gaze with a precise clarity of expression, the verse is muscular and delicate, spare and musical. From "that net of birds / that moves / unloosened / under bridges at dusk" to "the sea / wrecking itself against the rocks," Robertson is a master of evocative depiction. Filled with an irrepressible zest for life, he traces the arc of loss, the search for grace, and the radiance and shadows of life with a subtlety that is at once exhilarating and sensual.
Synopsis
Glyn Maxwell's previous book, The Sugar Mile, was heralded as a bold expansion of the art of poetry. Hide Now, his newest collection, written in wry, colloquial language and employing a brilliant array of poetic forms, delivers a commentary on the icons and iconic moments of the present. With a vision both apocalyptic and comic, Maxwell takes us from Robespierre to Dick Cheney to Guns N' Roses, from the unearthly quiet of a war zone to the pompous flapping of a flag to the sound of a departed friend's voice: "a certain note / I almost hear, can almost manage / in this throat." Hide Now is further evidence that Maxwell is the most adept heir to the poetic legacies of W. H. Auden and Robert Frost; James Wood described him as "the major poet of his generation." Fierce, direct, and bristling with intelligence, Hide Now is a remarkable addition to the oeuvre of a truly original poet.
Synopsis
To "swither" means to suffer indecision or doubt, but there is no faltering in these poems; any uncertainty is not in the lines or the sounds or the images, but only in the themes of flux and change and transformation that thread their way through this powerful third collection. Robin Robertson has written a book of remarkable cohesion and range that calls on his knowledge of folklore and myth to fuse the old ways with the new. From raw, exposed poems about the end of childhood to erotically charged lyrics about the end of desire, from a brilliant retelling of the metamorphosis and death of Actaeon to the final freeing of the waters in "Holding Proteus," these are close examinations of nature--of the bright epiphanies of passion and loss.
At times sombre, at times exultant, Robertson's poems are always firmly rooted in the world we see, the life we experience: original, precise, and startlingly clear.
Synopsis
Robin Robertsons fourth collection is an intense, moving, bleakly lyrical, and at times shocking book. These poems are written with the authority of classical myth, yet sound utterly contemporary. The poets gaze—whether on the natural world or the details of his own life— is unflinching and clear, its utter seriousness leavened by a wry, dry, and disarming humor.
Alongside fine translations from Neruda and Montale and dynamic retellings of stories from Ovid, the poems here pitch the power and wonder of nature against the frailty and failure of the human. This is a book of considerable grandeur and sweep that confirms Robertson as one of the most arresting and powerful poets at work today.
Synopsis
A new collection of poetry by acclaimed UK poet Robin Robertson
Synopsis
In “a first book of extraordinary gifts and assured maturity” (W. S. Merwin), Robin Robertson gives us forty-two poems that “are deep, dark journeys into the soul and psyche of human experience” (NPRs Weekend Edition). “The reader is almost blinded by the incandescent authority of these poems” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution).
About the Author
Robin Robertson is a 30-year veteran food writer, cooking teacher, and chef specializing in vegan and vegetarian cooking. She is the author of 20 vegetarian or vegan cookbooks, including Vegan Planet and 1,000 Vegan Recipes, and is a regular columnist for VegNews magazine and VegCooking.com. She operates a vegan-focused website and blog at RobinRobertson.com.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
I
Album 3
Signs on a White Field 4
By Clachan Bridge 6
Tulips 8
The Plague Year 9
Wonderland 13
The Tweed 14
About Time 15
Fall from Grace 16
Going to Ground 17
Cat, Failing 18
A Gift 19
Strindberg in Berlin 20
Venery 22
My Girls 23
Tinsel 24
Leaving St Kilda 25
II
Law of the Island 33
Kalighat 34
Religion 36
Pentheus and Dionysus 37
Lesson 45
The Daughters of Minyas 46
An Ambush 52
Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market 53
Grave Goods 56
Albatross in Co. Antrim 57
The Great Midwinter Sacrifice, Uppsala 58
Web 60
The Hammam 61
The Act of Distress 62
White 63
III
The Wood of Lost Things 67
Middle Watch, Hammersmith 70
Landfall 71
Calling Home 72
Ictus 73
The Unwritten Letter 74
Beginning to Green 75
During Dinner 76
Arsenio 77
Dress Rehearsals 80
Easter, Liguria 81
Widows Walk 82
Diving 84
Abandon 86
At Roane Head 87
Hammersmith Winter 90
Notes & Acknowledgements 93