Love and Zen in the Outer Hebrides by Kevin MacNeil 

Canongate, 1998, 77 p.

MacNeil first published works of poetry before going on to write some of the most idiosyncratic novels to come out of Scotland this century – or indeed the past many decades. (See The Stornoway Way, A Method Actor’s Guide to Jekyll and Hyde and The Brilliant and Forever.) This was his first book of poems and comprises IV Parts, the first of which, Learning the Art, consists mostly of very short stories which are poem-like in their economy. A couple are written in a form of English which approximates the Western Isles dialect. (The author is from Lewis.) The remainder of the book contains poems – some as terse as haiku – written in English or in Gaelic with English translations appended.

Pedant’s corner:- “ ‘We’ll go hack to the pub,’” (back,) “the lay of the land” (it wasn’t a song so ‘lie of the land’.)

Tags: , , , , ,

Leave a Reply

free hit counter script