In Mortal Memory is a collection of lyric poems, celebratory if often melancholy, both elegiac and ironic. Affirming that life is 'all becoming' McNeillie mourns what that means in terms of loss and sorrow at time passing. The sea is a powerful presence, its meaning drawn both from the northern landscapes in which McNeillie's work is rooted, and from the work of French poets, from Baudelaire and Hugo to Rimbaud and Corbière. The poems pitch up and down across formalities, against the idea of purity, while sustaining a rhyming, singing line.
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I lie awake for more than half the night like a northern summer, my mind suffused with light, though it's deep winter still and long days are a dream that's yet to come when short nights keep a bonfire never quite WINTER SONG
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(@Carcanet, 25 February 2010, ebook, 70 pages, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveInc)
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This is a new poet for me. I really enjoyed In Mortal Memory chosen because I liked the image on the cover. These poems are quite lyrical in that they seem almost to have a rhythm, a musical undertone or beat running through them. I liked the poems a lot. The poems explore the many facets of loss and some are quite beautifully written. I also liked the references to nature especially the sea which normally puts me off.
