Full Description
Hugh McMillan is a poet and one of Scotland's best and most unique contemporary voices. Rarely operating in the mainstream, he has yet built up a reputation for powerful, accessible and moving work, often using humour as a tool. He has been writing poetry for 30 years and this book represents the first sizeable selection of that work, along with a large number of new poems.
Contents
Acknowledgements 11
Foreword: Alistair Findlay 13
Not Actually Being in Dumfries 17
Daydreams 18
Notebook 19
Hoagies 20
A Gift, after the Event 21
Twelfth Night 22
Silences 23
Book Launch, Oxford 2009 24
The Visitation: Jacob Epstein 25
My Father from Extant Sources 26
The Day of Willie Neill's Funeral 28
Saturday Morning 29
My Parents' Marriage 30
Excavation 31
Grounded 32
Caedmon Singing in his Barn 33
My Sister Went to Guayaquil 34
The Workshop Exercise is `Write about a Potato' 35
Starcat 36
Hugelshofer, Jackson, Gilruth, Chinnock and Bain 37
Letter 39
Too Big a Part 40
The End of the Holidays 41
Flacking Crombled Wi' Dwank Shommers o Drod an Fistering Sleugh 43
Reborn 44
Your Boyfriend Was A Red 45
Landing in Neapolis 46
Summerisle 47
Eating Seafood 48
Tales of the Treehouse 49
End of Year Exam 50
Jock Tamson's Beach Bar 51
Reading Billy Collins in the Bath 52
The Balcony of the Salutation Hotel 53
Another Day in South West Scotland 54
Auchencairn, and Scotland, as it Might Be 55
Another Day in South West Scotland 2 56
Fairies 57
The Flight of the Techno-Quarks 58
Carolyn Herschel's Christmas 59
I see White Birds Walk on Ice 60
Settlement 61
The Black Loch 62
from Triumph of the Air, 1989
Triumph of the Air 66
Saturday in the Western Bar 67
A Present of a Submarine 68
Anglophobia 70
from Tramontana, 1990
Bad News about Suicide by Drowning 74
On the Point 75
In the Southern General 77
The Station Bar 79
Who Farted in Room xix? (The Ufizzi, July 1988) 80
Marina 82
Tommy 83
Salty 84
An American Dream 86
Natural Wastage 87
Majorettes 88
Love Poem 90
Lindsay and Susan at Tyne Cot 91
The Caulside Cafe 93
The Medium and the Mixture (Hole in the Wa', September, 1986) 94
Echoes 96
Making for Arcadia 97
Ten Past Eleven 99
May Revision 100
Supervising S3 Science 102
1990 104
The End of the Road 105
from Horridge, 1994
The World Book of the McMillans 108
Tam Rejects the Consolation of the Church 109
Old Bobby Spoils a Night Out 110
Soor Faced Sue 112
A Very Straight Line 113
The Black Gulls 114
Sundown 115
Play 116
Surprise Attacks 117
The Fire and the Flowers 118
The Window 120
In the Frame 121
A Wee Word 122
Readings of October 123
Turning Taps 124
Letter from the 24th Congress of the Communist Party 125
Dr Gallagher, I presume 126
Tour 4150 127
Rejoice, there is a Juggler's Shop 128
Ideal Homes 129
The Moon over Constanza 130
Death on the Nith 131
A Cultural Exchange in Scotland 132
Pictures in the Fleshers' Arms 133
Marking 135
Hammy and the Dog 136
Mon Cher 137
from Aphrodite's Anorak, 1996
Leaving Scotland by Train 140
Willie 141
Dundee Jute Mill, Turn of the Century 142
Monday Midnight 143
Saturday 21st May 144
The X Files: Bonnybridge, October `95 145
What You Feel like When you get Eaten by a Bear 146
Hans from Wuppertal 148
Reflections on the Aphrodite of Rhodes 149
History of Knossos 150
Targets 151
Aine 152
Address to a Galway Pen 153
Easdale 154
Getting Too Late For Football 155
Blethers 156
On the Hoof 157
Louisiana Train 158
History 159
At the Swings 161
Angles 162
Shug, Alex, Jock, Willie... 163
Lyn Wilson Says a Prayer for Robert Burns 164
The Little Summer of San Demetrios 165
The Cargo of the `Hopeful Binning of Bo'ness', Bound for the Darien Peninsula, 1699 166
As We Go Home 167
In Search of Leanne 168
Hole in the Wa' - April '96 169
Saturday Afternoon in the Grotto 171
Happy New Year 172
from After the Storm, 2005
Wandered 174
Passage 175
While Ian Dunbar sleeps 176
Girls in Blue Afghan Coats 177
My Mother's Dictionary 178
Old Photograph 179
A Curse on Sister Owens 180
On the Coast of North West England 182
After a Storm 183
Marked 184
Faculty Meeting 186
Summer in Dumfries 187
February 189
Primary Numbers 190
Out of the Way 191
Points Missed 192
from Strange Bamboo, 2007
My Father 194
Rabbit Rover's Last Game 196
August (to Andrea & Grievy) 197
September 199
A Poet Sitting Under a Wall Mistakes Some Pints
of Magners for the Muse 200
The Lost Poems 201
First Day Back 202
The Men From Duncow 204
March Past 205
Millenium 2 206
Oz Aerobics 207
Tam's Room 208
Holiday Cottage, Out of the Way 209
Another Lost Boy on the Cumnock Bus 210
The Man Whose Last Kiss Was Me 211
from The Lost Garden, 2010
Patriotism 214
George 5th Earl Seaton from the portrait by Frans Pourbus the Elder 215
Rousing Speeches of the Middle Ages as heard by the back row of spearmen 216
Scorched Earth 217
Pope Boniface viii Sums Up the Evidence 218
Three Letters from a Tenant to MacMhaolain Mor,
1745-6 219
Proof At Last 221
Lochinver 222
My Feet 223
Moonshine 224
Hamecomin' 225
