Collection by leading Scottish poet.

While much of Crawford's inspiration is drawn from history, place, and technology - with poems on disparate locations such as Wyoming, France, and the Shetlands; poems covering subjects such as the Aztecs and the Bronze Age; poems on broadband and Satnav - some of the most impressive poems drawn their inspiration from other poets. There are versions of poems by writers like Paz and Pessoa, not to mention a number of reworkings of Latin poems by Scottish writers like George Buchanan. The Latin ones provide the subject matter for the majority of the longer poems in the collection, and tend to be meatier and grittier than Crawford's own more playful work. (This does raise interesting questions about poetry in translation - just whose poems are we now reading? The original author's or the translator's).

Crawford's poetry may not be philosophically or intellectually the deepest but these are sharp, enjoyable poems. Worth searching out.


THE KIRK

Good for directions, creeds, and mysteries
Of blood-bead, mustard seed, bread, water, wine,

You're part of the horizon in our midst
Skymark and landmark, take-off point, and stark

Terminal building where, at start or finish,
Some seek the spirit like a mislaid passport

To daily light, or past the Milky Way's
Communing disc of otherworldly stars;

Some live God's sums of plenitude and loss,
Christ on the cross and then the Christless cross;

Some hear the seasoned Word clear as a bell;
And some, an inch, a clinch, a world away,

Touch and discover what it is to love
The carved wall of a church that's without walls.

YING AND YANG
after Pessoa

In my body you scour the sgurr
For its sun buried deep in the forest.
In your body I search for the boat
Let slip in the middle of the night. ( )