Skip to main content

Norman MacCaig: Poetry Hero


I cannot say exactly when I first discovered Norman MacCaig.  It may have been at the beginning of this year, but could well have been at the end of last.  I found him through a tweet.  Six months or more is a long time on Twitter, and when tweets get to a certain age, they're as stubbornly elusive as a missing person who wants to stay missed.

But I know the tweet was left by poet Jo Bell, the director of National Poetry Day, and whose wonderful blog can be found here.  The link she left took me to an enthralling 25-minute interview with MacCaig.  I liked the man instantly.  I replied to Jo by saying what how charming MacCaig was.  He had a warm sparkle in his eye that only Scots seem to have access to.  He epitomised charismatic.  Unfortunately, embedding has been disabled on the video, but it can be found here

Fast forward to yesterday.  I was sat in Stanman's Kitchen on Gloucester's Westgate Street (if only all local businesses were run this well.  Their website can be found here.  I urge you to visit).  I was reading Spring's issue of Poetry News when on page 4 I came across the following article:


Like the man himself, his poetry is inherently likeable.  I was drawn to extract from his poem, 'Climbing Suilven.'  I felt a great urge to find and read the rest of it.

       Climbing Suilven

        I nod and nod to my own shadow and thrust
A mountain down and down.
Between my feet a loch shines in the brown,
It’s silver paper crinkled and edged with rust.
My lungs say No;
But down and down this treadmill hill must go.

Parishes dwindle. But my parish is
This stone, that tuft, this stone
And the cramped quarters of my flesh and bone.
I claw that tall horizon down to this;
And suddenly
My shadow jumps huge miles away from me.

For a relatively short poem, MacCaig captures the thoughts and feelings of climbing towards a mountain peak with such simplicity that I cannot help to marvel at it. You can almost feel the heaviness of MacCaig's feet as he battles opposing forces in the rhythm of the first two lines: "I nod and nod [...] A mountain down and down", and again in the last line of the first stanza: "But down and down this treadmill hill must go." The repitition of "down and down" highlights the repition of climbing to Suilven's 731 metre peak. 

"This treadmill hill" is perhaps my favourite phrase of the whole poem. By downgrading the mountain to a hill, MacCaig wants to overcome his physical struggle by belittling it. While in the throws of such repitition, the mind is focused on battling inner demons attempting to dissuade you from going further. In repelling these doubts, a treadmill is all this "hill" becomes to McCaig. 

In the second and last stanza, you get more of an idea as to MacCaig's motives for climbing Suilven. The doubts expressed in the first half of the poem/mountain have given way to a rewarding acceptance of having almost conquered the climb. While this perhaps falls short of outright equanimity, you do get a sense that a certain spiritual clarity beckons as he nears the mountaintop, throwing out any religious connotation by redefining his idea of a parish.

Parishes dwindle. But my parish is
This stone, that tuft, this stone
And the cramped quarters of my flesh and bone.

The ending, well, left me breathless, as perhaps the conclusion of a climb should:

And suddenly
My shadow jumps huge miles away from me.

This is the beauty of MacCaig's voice. It is not a description of the eventual sight that MacCaig settles on, but the way in which his physical presence reacts to it. It is a wonderfully subversive way to end, and in subverting the conventional description of landscape from high up, MacCaig is perhaps paying a higher testimony to it.

For further reading and more information on Norman MacCaig (and for the tribute the BBC paid to MacCaig on the centenary of his birth in 2010), please visit the arts blog, That's How The Light Gets In.

I would also like to the mention David Sparshott's fantastic illustration of MacCaig that features at the head of this article in Poetry News.  His website can be found here.  Without the accuracy and warmness of his illustration, the article may not have evoked the kindness that came across when I first made this wonderful discovery.

Comments

  1. Fascinating stuff! Thanks for pointing me in MacCaig's direction: I'll have to search for more of his work. I have to admit I'm very ignorant about poetry beyond Blake or the Romantics etc. which I learned about at school. I know next to nothing about modern poetry :-(

    Any more recommendations?

    And, yes, Stanman's Kitchen is a lovely little place...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I guess I like the (ostensibly) straightforward and playful poets like Billy Collins, Roger McGough, Ted Kooser and Douglas Dunn. I saw Carol Ann Duffy at a reading last year. Her book, Rapture is an exceptional book. I've been keeping track of a poet called William Letford. He's a Scottish roofer and writes everyone really great stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cheers! I'll have to check them out. I've heard of Roger McGouch ( can't really miss him... ) but the others I don't know. I used to like the Punk / Ranting Poets like John Cooper Clarke, Attila The Stockbroker and Steven "Seething" Wells... but that's another kettle of fish :-)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Samsa & Shabeezi

Samsa was now a human.  He’d recently become a human after his architect decided to put a human heart in him and give him feelings.  The five litres of blood that now pumped around his body warmed him up.  It made for incredible nose bleeds, spasms, cramps and bruising, to name o nly a small fraction of the symptoms, but his architect assured him that it would all be worth it and that he'd feel normal very soon.  He didn't know what normal was, but he knew it wasn't puking and shitting and bleeding all over the place for the first two months and then just feeling terrible for several weeks after that.  Human life is agony, he thought, but he trusted the process.  One day, a little over twelve weeks after the operation, he woke up from his first good night's sleep and was able to open the curtains without the light splitting his skull in two.  Samsa had known Shabeezi before she became a human woman.   All they had done was fight.   Samsa especially liked doing flying

When I Needed a Winter Project, I Turned to Dylan Thomas - a Tommy & Moon Story

Before the snow came the smell of cinnamon. I wanted to track it all the way back to its source, to see who gave it flight. I imagine a woman, seventy-five, making herself a cappuccino next to an open window. The air is cold and sharp but she needs a quick blast of late autumn’s best before she gets out with the whippet. Wisp is looking at her from her basket, scanning for indications from mum that her walk is coming. Don’t worry, Wisp: walkies is imminent - but then a song comes on the radio that she hasn’t heard in fifty years. The Serge Gainsbourg ballad throws her into a deep dream-state, a reverie that takes her all the way back to Paris. She walks to the cupboard to find the cinnamon shaker, brushing shoulders with actors and actresses who’d worked with Godard and Truffaut and Antonioni. She remembers the time she once saw Jane Birkin at a party and witnessed first-hand the effect her beauty had on all the men in the room. I was two miles away from home, running at an easy, stead

An Expert Analysis of Michael Fassbender's Running Style From the Film 'Shame'

Tom Wiggins: What are your first impressions of Michael Fassbender/Brandon's running style? Paul Whittaker: He's running nice, smooth and relaxed. He seems like he has a good amount of fitness and he is running well within himself in terms of pace.   TW: What improvements could he make to his running style? PW: The main improvement I'd make is his foot plant.  He lands heel first and this causes a 'breaking' effect when travelling forwards.  If he landed on his mid-foot/forefoot, this would be a much better for impact stress and propulsion going forward into the next running stride. TW: Regarding his speed, how many minutes per mile is he running? PW : I would say he is running approx 7-7.30 minutes per mile. TW:   What do you make of his stride lengths?  Is he overstriding/understriding? PW:  The actor is definitely overstriding in this clip.  It would help if his feet landed underneath and below his centre of gravity. TW: What's his