Norman MacCaig
Norman MacCaig OBE | |
---|---|
Born | Norman Alexander McCaig 14 November 1910 Edinburgh, Scotland |
Died | 23 January 1996 Edinburgh | (aged 85)
Occupation | Poet, teacher |
Language | English |
Nationality | Scottish |
Alma mater | University of Edinburgh |
Literary movement | New Apocalyptics |
Notable awards |
|
Spouse |
Isabel Robina Munro
(m. 1940; died 1990) |
Children | 2 |
Norman Alexander MacCaig
Life
Norman Alexander MacCaig was born at 15 East London Street,
During the Second World War MacCaig registered as a conscientious objector, a move that many at the time criticised. Douglas Dunn has suggested that MacCaig's career later suffered as a result of his outspoken pacifism, although there is no evidence of this.[citation needed] For the early part of his working life, he was employed as a school teacher in primary schools. In 1967 he was appointed Fellow in Creative Writing at Edinburgh. He became a reader in poetry in 1970 at the University of Stirling. He spent his summer holidays in Achmelvich, and Inverkirkaig, near Lochinver.[4]
His first collection, Far Cry, was published in 1943. He continued to publish throughout his lifetime and was prolific in the amount that he produced. After his death a still larger collection of unpublished poems was found. MacCaig often gave public readings of his work in Edinburgh and elsewhere; these were extremely popular and for many people were the first introduction to the poet. His life is also noteworthy for the friendships he had with a number of other Scottish poets, such as
Work
Early
MacCaig's first two books were deeply influenced by the
Later
In later years he relaxed some of the formality of his work, losing the rhymes and strict metricality but always strove to maintain the lucidity. He became a free verse poet with the publication of Surroundings in 1966. Seamus Heaney described his work as "an ongoing education in the marvellous possibilities of lyric poetry."[5] Ted Hughes wrote, "whenever I meet his poems, I'm always struck by their undated freshness, everything about them is alive, as new and essential, as ever."[6] Another poet, beside Donne, whom MacCaig claimed was a great influence on his work was Louis MacNeice.[citation needed] Although he never lost his sense of humour, much of his very late work, following the death of his wife in 1990, is more sombre in tone. The poems appear to be full of heartbreak but they never become pessimistic.
An example of this is his poem "Praise of a Man" which was quoted by Gordon Brown in the eulogy he gave at the funeral of Robin Cook in 2005:[7]
The beneficent lights dim
but don't vanish.
The razory edges
dull, but still cut.
He's gone:
but you can see
his tracks still, in the snow of the world.
A verse of MacCaig's poem Moorings is cited on the reverse side of the new 10-pound polymer banknote that was introduced by the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2017.
In schools
MacCaig's poems are studied in schools in Scotland at
- Assisi
- Visiting Hour
- Basking Shark
- Brooklyn Cop
- Hotel Room, 12th Floor
- Aunt Julia
Awards
- 1985 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry[9]
- 1979 Order of the British Empire[3]
- 1975 Cholmondeley Award[10]
Bibliography
Poetry
- Far Cry. London: Routledge, 1943.
- The Inward Eye. London: Routledge, 1946.
- Riding Lights. London: Hogarth Press, 1955.
- The Sinai Sort. London: Hogarth Press, 1957.
- A Common Grace. London: Chatto & Windus, 1960.
- A Round of Applause. London: Chatto & Windus, 1962.
- Contemporary Scottish Verse, 1959–1969 (Edinburgh: Calder & Boyards, 1970).
- Measures. London: Chatto & Windus, 1965.
- Surroundings. London: Chatto & Windus, 1967.
- Rings on a Tree. Chatto & Windus, 1968.
- Visiting Hour. London: 1968.
- A Man in My Position. London: Chatto & Windus, 1969.
- Selected Poems (1979).
- The White Bird. London: Chatto & Windus, 1973.
- The World's Room. London: Chatto & Windus, 1974.
- Tree of Strings. London: Chatto & Windus, 1977.
- Old Maps and New. London: Chatto & Windus, 1978.
- The Equal Skies. London: Chatto & Windus: Hogarth Press, 1980.
- A World of Difference. London: Chatto & Windus, 1983.
- Voice Over. London: Chatto & Windus, 1989.
- Collected Poems (revised and expanded edn, 1993).
- Assisi. Italy
- An Ordinary Day
- Brooklyn Cop
- Aunt Julia
- Ewen McCaig, ed. (2005). The poems of Norman MacCaig. Polygon. ISBN 978-1-904598-26-8.
Anthologies
- Maurice Lindsay, Lesley Duncan, ed. (2006). "No Choice". The Edinburgh book of twentieth-century Scottish poetry. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-2015-9.
- Jay Parini, ed. (2005). "Frogs". The Wadsworth anthology of poetry. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-1-4130-0473-1.
- Roderick Watson, ed. (1995). "Summer Farm; Still Life". The poetry of Scotland: Gaelic, Scots, and English, 1380–1980. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-0607-8.
- Robert Atwan, Laurance Wieder, ed. (1993). "Golden Calf". Chapters into verse : poetry in English inspired by the Bible. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-506913-6.
- Ian Scott-Kilvert, ed. (1987). British writers. Scribner. ISBN 978-0-684-80641-9.
- Macha Louis Rosenthal, ed. (1968). 100 postwar poems, British and American. Macmillan.
References
- ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original(PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 16 June 2017.
- ^ BBC Biography – Norman MacCaig Archived 29 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Learning Journeys, Writing Scotland. Retrieved on 9 November 2007.
- ^ . Retrieved 23 October 2013.
- ISBN 9780415007313– via Google Books.
- ^ "Poems of Norman MacCaig, the :: Poetry :: Birlinn Ltd". Archived from the original on 10 November 2016. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
- ^ "Features | Scotland.org". Scotland.
- ^ Brown, Gordon (12 August 2005). "Gordon Brown's eulogy to Robin Cook". The Guardian. London.
- ^ "Poetry of Norman MacCaig" (PDF). www.hoddergibson.co.uk. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
- ISBN 9780948875595– via Google Books.
- ^ "The Cholmondeley Awards for Poets past winners". The Society of Authors. Archived from the original on 5 August 2016. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
Further reading
- The Saltire Society, Edinburgh, pp. 20 - 23
- Fulton, Robin (1963), Selves, Myths and Landscapes: The Poetry of Norman MacCaig, in Magnusson, Magnus (ed.). New Saltire No. 10: December 1963, New Saltire Ltd., Edinburgh, pp. 20 - 23
- Ross, Raymond J. (1982), Interview with Norman MacCaig, in Murray, Glen (ed.), ISSN 0264-0856
External links
- The Write Stuff at National Library of Scotland
- Film interview Norman MacCaig: a man in my position
- MacCaig on BBC.co.uk Archived 29 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- Interview with Jennie Renton
- Obituary
- Marjory McNeill (1996). Norman MacCaig: a study of his life and work. Mercat Press. ISBN 978-1-873644-51-5.
- Portrait of Norman MacCaig by Alex Main, Scottish National Portrait Gallery
- Norman MacCaig Collection at the University of Stirling Archive