Writing about writing
George Mackay Brown wrote this about writing:
Therefore he no more troubled the pool of silenceTHE POET by George Mackay Brown
But put on mask and cloak,
Strung a guitar
And moved among the folk.
Dancing they cried,
'Ah, how our sober islands
Are gay again, since this blind lyrical tramp
Invaded the Fair!'
Under the last dead lamp
When all the dancers and masks had gone inside
His cold stare
Returned to its true task, interrogation of silence.
published in George Mackay Brown, POEMS, New and Selected, The Hogarth Press, 1971
(Permission to reprint this poem was applied for to John Murray, at Hodder Headline, on 13 August 2007.)
For more on this most solitary, lyrical, thoughtful and quietly passionate of poets, read Maggie Fergusson's wonderful George Mackay Brown, The Life published by John Murray, 2006. (It won the Scottish Arts Council Award for a first book in August 2007.)
