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Sparrow​


He’s no artist.
His taste in clothes is more
dowdy than gaudy.
And his nest – that blackbird, writing
pretty scrolls on the air with the gold nib of his beak
would call it a slum

To stalk solitary on lawns,
to sing solitary in midnight trees,
to glide solitary over grey atlantics–
not for him: he’d rather
a punch up in a gutter

He carries what learning he las[?]
lightly – it is, in fact, based only
on the usefulness whose result
is survival. A proletarian bird.
No scholar.

But when winter soft-shoes in
and these other birds –
ballet dancers, musicians, architects –
die in the snow
and freeze to branches,
watch him happily flying
on the O-levels and A-levels
of the air.
Norman MacCaig, Dec. 1968​
 
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zinniabooklover said:
"Four larks are singing in a showering sprinkle
Their bright testaments: in a foreign language.

And always the beach is oghamed and cunieformed
By knot and dunlin and country-dancing sandpipers.

– There’s Donnie’s lugsail. He’s off to the lobsters.
The mast tilts to the north, the boat sails west.

A dictionary of him? – Can you imagine it? – A volume thick as the height of the Clisham,

A volume big as the whole of Harris,
A volume beyond the wit of scholars."



Wow!" Just Wow! 😲 🔥 ❤️ ✨
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Right?! This is the best I’ve seen in a long time!
 
Agonum said:

Sparrow​


He’s no artist.
His taste in clothes is more dowdy than gaudy.
And his nest – that blackbird, writing pretty scrolls on the air with the gold nib of his beak, would call it a slum.

To stalk solitary on lawns,
to sing solitary in midnight trees,
to glide solitary over gray Atlantics – not for him: he’s rather a punch-up in a gutter.

He carries what learning he has lightly – it is, in fact, based only on the usefulness whose result
is survival. A proletarian bird. No scholar.

But when winter soft-shoes in
and these other birds – ballet dancers, musicians, architects – die in the snow
And freeze to branches, watch him happily flying on the O-levels and A-levels of the air.
Norman MacCaig, Dec. 1968​
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I was just listening to this one but it didn't work for me. Works better on the page. I'm not keen on poetry read out loud, I like it better on the page.
 

Assisi​


The dwarf with his hands on backwards
sat, slumped like a half-filled sack
on tiny twisted legs from which
sawdust might run,
outside the three tiers of churches built
in honour of St Francis, brother
of the poor, talker with birds, over whom
he had the advantage
of not being dead yet.

A priest explained
how clever it was of Giotto
to make his frescoes tell stories
that would reveal to the illiterate the goodness
of God and the suffering
of His Son. I understood
the explanation and
the cleverness.

A rush of tourists, clucking contentedly,
fluttered after him as he scattered
the grain of the Word. It was they who had passed
the ruined temple outside, whose eyes
wept pus, whose back was higher
than his head, whose lopsided mouth
said Grazie in a voice as sweet
as a child’s when she speaks to her mother
or a bird’s when it spoke
to St Francis.
Norman MacCaig, The Many Days: Selected Poems of Norman MacCaig (Polygon 2011)​
 
Agonum said:

Sparrow​


He’s no artist.
His taste in clothes is more dowdy than gaudy.
And his nest – that blackbird, writing pretty scrolls on the air with the gold nib of his beak, would call it a slum.

To stalk solitary on lawns,
to sing solitary in midnight trees,
to glide solitary over gray Atlantics – not for him: he’s rather a punch-up in a gutter.

He carries what learning he has lightly – it is, in fact, based only on the usefulness whose result
is survival. A proletarian bird. No scholar.

But when winter soft-shoes in
and these other birds – ballet dancers, musicians, architects – die in the snow
And freeze to branches, watch him happily flying on the O-levels and A-levels of the air.
Norman MacCaig, Dec. 1968​
Click to expand...
He seems to really build up to something amazing at the end of his poems.
 
Agonum said:

Assisi​


The dwarf with his hands on backwards
sat, slumped like a half-filled sack
on tiny twisted legs from which
sawdust might run,
outside the three tiers of churches built
in honour of St Francis, brother
of the poor, talker with birds, over whom
he had the advantage
of not being dead yet.

A priest explained
how clever it was of Giotto
to make his frescoes tell stories
that would reveal to the illiterate the goodness
of God and the suffering
of His Son. I understood
the explanation and
the cleverness.

A rush of tourists, clucking contentedly,
fluttered after him as he scattered
the grain of the Word. It was they who had passed
the ruined temple outside, whose eyes
wept pus, whose back was higher
than his head, whose lopsided mouth
said Grazie in a voice as sweet
as a child’s when she speaks to her mother
or a bird’s when it spoke
to St Francis.
Norman MacCaig, The Many Days: Selected Poems of Norman MacCaig (Polygon 2011)​
Click to expand...
Another one I didn't like hearing read out.

"A rush of tourists, clucking contentedly,
fluttered after him as he scattered
the grain of the Word."

❤️
 
zinniabooklover said:
You need to go back and revisit, don't you? Or I do. There's so much to enjoy upfront but then the other layers start to reveal themselves ...
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Go back where? Have I missed MacCaig earlier in the thread? Sorry if I’m being thick.

Edit: There’s no doubt.
 
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Agonum said:
Go back where? Have I missed MacCaig earlier in the thread? Sorry if I’m being thick.
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No, I meant, his poems are great at first. And then the real greatness starts to reveal itself. Like any good poetry, it doesn't give up all its treasures at once. Not to mention that thing of his poems seemingly building up to something really amazing towards the end. I mean, I'm saying that based on a mere two poems but I think it's interesting and noticeable. To me, anyway.
 

Basking Shark​

by Norman MacCaig

from The Many Days: Selected Poems of Norman MacCaig (Polygon 2011)



To stub an oar on a rock where none should be,
To have it rise with a slounge out of the sea
Is a thing that happened once (too often) to me.

But not too often – though enough. I count as gain
That once I met, on a sea tin-tacked with rain,
That roomsized monster with a matchbox brain.

He displaced more than water. He shoggled me
Centuries back – this decadent townee
Shook on a wrong branch of his family tree.

Swish up the dirt and, when it settles, a spring
Is all the clearer. I saw me, in one fling,
Emerging from the slime of everything.

So who’s the monster? The thought made me grow pale
For twenty seconds while, sail after sail,
The tall fin slid away and then the tail.
 
zinniabooklover said:
No, I meant, his poems are great at first. And then the real greatness starts to reveal itself. Like any good poetry, it doesn't give up all its treasures at once. Not to mention that thing of his poems seemingly building up to something really amazing towards the end. I mean, I'm saying that based on a mere two poems but I think it's interesting and noticeable. To me, anyway.
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I’m sure you are a far (far!) more experienced lover of poetry than me. I’m all green! You certainly see things that I do not (yet). There are even words that I don’t know here and there! But what I do know, is that I love the sound of it.
 

Norman MacCaig 1910 - 1996​

A poet who divided his life and the attention of his poetry between Assynt in the West Highlands, and the city of Edinburgh, Norman MacCaig combined ‘precise observation with creative wit’, and wrote with a passion for clarity.

(the Scottish Poetry Library)


Sorry, @Agonum - did you already post this? I'm losing my sh!t over here, lol.

Mind blown! 😲 :ROFLMAO:
 
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Agonum said:
I’m sure you are a far (far!) more experienced lover of poetry than me. I’m all green! You certainly see things that I do not (yet). There are even words that I don’t know here and there! But what I do know, is that I love the sound of it.
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Exactly so! That's why I posted this bit:

"... on a sea tin-tacked with rain,"

That line works on the page and as a sound in my head. As I said before, poetry read out loud is not my thing at all. But the sounds poetry can create inside your head are amazing. And MacCaig's poems create a lot of soundscapes in my head.

Loving it. And loving his vocab, as you say. :D
 
p01cgpvl.jpg
 
Here you go. Bc you (quite rightly) like things to be properly labelled. :D

"Basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) disappears back into the blue in the surface waters around the island of Coll, Inner Hebrides, Scotland, UK, June. Did you know? Basking sharks are the second largest fish in the world (after Whale sharks) and can weigh up to 7 tonnes"

basking-shark-cetorhinus-maximus-15362219.jpg.webp


www.mediastorehouse.com

Prints of Basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) disappears back into the blue in the surface waters

Basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) disappears back into the blue in the surface waters around the island of Coll, Inner Hebrides, Scotland, UK, June. Did you know? Basking sharks are the second largest fish in the world (after Whale sharks) and can weigh up to 7 tonnes!. Our beautiful Wall Art...
www.mediastorehouse.com
 
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zinniabooklover said:

Norman MacCaig 1910 - 1996​

A poet who divided his life and the attention of his poetry between Assynt in the West Highlands, and the city of Edinburgh, Norman MacCaig combined ‘precise observation with creative wit’, and wrote with a passion for clarity.

(the Scottish Poetry Library)


Sorry, @Agonum - did you already post this? I'm losing my sh!t over here, lol.

Mind blown! 😲 :ROFLMAO:
Click to expand...
Is all good, there’s some new bits in there! 😅
 
Agonum said:
Love it. That’s an anapaest into a diiamb, right? That’s how I read it.

⏑⏑– ⏑–⏑–
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Ah, see, now this is too technical for me. This is the stuff that doesn't interest me at all. I think it's fine for it to be taught at school but it just doesn't get me excited. I'm more interested in this:

"Norman MacCaig is best-known as a great love poet of the natural world. His poems describe toads, dogs, ducks, sharks, horses and birds. He looks at living creatures – animals, people – and places, with an incredibly keen perception. He describes them in their own particularity. If he describes a basking shark, you can be certain that it’s a basking shark, not some other type of big fishy creature.

And yet, listen closely to these poems and he is also doing something else. He is engaging your mind by the way his language works. The actual words he uses, so carefully, in each line, each phrase, of every poem, are carefully chosen, calculated to carry their meaning. Sometimes this makes you wonder if the limits of your world are created by the language you use to describe it ... "

asls.org.uk

19 Poems of Norman MacCaig

by Edwin Morgan, with readings by Norman MacCaig Published in: Audio CD. By: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, Glasgow, October 2006. Price: £9.95 ISBN 978-0-948877-74-2 Norman MacCaig is…
asls.org.uk asls.org.uk
 
zinniabooklover said:
I was just listening to this one but it didn't work for me. Works better on the page. I'm not keen on poetry read out loud, I like it better on the page.
Click to expand...
I’m like you there, I think. I want to set the pace myself. And I want to repeat certain lines several times to put the stresses exactly where they need to be.
 
zinniabooklover said:
You need to go back and revisit, don't you? Or I do. There's so much to enjoy upfront but then the other layers start to reveal themselves ...
Click to expand...
I get what you mean now. And yes, I certainly will have to revisit them. Even now, just reading these few that we’ve posted on here for the second or third time, I’m seeing things that I didn’t quite catch the first time around.

Exciting stuff!
 
zinniabooklover said:

Basking Shark​

by Norman MacCaig

from The Many Days: Selected Poems of Norman MacCaig (Polygon 2011)



To stub an oar on a rock where none should be,
To have it rise with a slounge out of the sea
Is a thing that happened once (too often) to me.

But not too often – though enough. I count as gain
That once I met, on a sea tin-tacked with rain,
That roomsized monster with a matchbox brain.

He displaced more than water. He shoggled me
Centuries back – this decadent townee
Shook on a wrong branch of his family tree.

Swish up the dirt and, when it settles, a spring
Is all the clearer. I saw me, in one fling,
Emerging from the slime of everything.

So who’s the monster? The thought made me grow pale
For twenty seconds while, sail after sail,
The tall fin slid away and then the tail.
Click to expand...
I love the rhythm in
“For twenty seconds while, sail after sail,
The tall fin slid away and then the tail.”
 
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