New Collected Poems: New Collected Poems: Iain Crichton Smith

Many of these poems read like powerful soliloquies, as spoken by actors in a Shakespearean play. I have attempted to be faithful to this beckoning in my reading of this particular poem, one of Crichton's finest. It explores many of the themes which permeate his work: His staunch atheism and rejection of dour Scottish Presbyterianism, his love of myth and of the natural world, and yet his ambiguous feelings to this world's indifferent, often hostile nature.Note: My apologies for not being able to read it in a Scottish accent. It would come across as parody! My English one will have to do.