Norman MacCaig

Norman MacCaig (1910-1996). Courtesy Plunder and Savage.

Norman MacCaig (14 November 1910 – 23 January 1996) was a Scottish poet. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity.

Life

Youth and education

MacCaig was born in Edinburgh, and divided his time, for the rest of his life, between his native city and Assynt in the Scottish Highlands.

He was schooled at the Royal High School in Edinburgh), and studied classics at the University of Edinburgh.

Career

During World War II MacCaig registered as a conscientious objector, a move that many at the time criticised. Douglas Dunn has suggested that MacCaig's career later suffered due to his outspoken pacifism, although there is no concrete evidence of this.

For the early part of his working life, he was employed as a school teacher in primary schools. In 1967 he was appointed fellow in creative writing at Edinburgh. He became a reader in poetry in 1970, at the University of Stirling. He spent his summer holidays in Achmelvich, and Inverkirkaig, near Lochinver.

His debut collection, Far Cry, was published in 1943. He continued to publish throughout his lifetime and was prolific in the amount that he produced. After his death a still larger collection of unpublished poems were found. MacCaig often gave public readings of his work, in Edinburgh and elsewhere, these were extremely popular and for many people were the first introduction to the poet. His life is also noteworthy for the friendships he had with a number of other Scottish poets, such as Hugh MacDiarmid and Douglas Dunn. He described his own religious beliefs as 'Zen Calvinism', a comment typical of his half-humorous, half-serious approach to life.

Writing

Early

MacCaig's initial 2 books were deeply influenced by the New Apocalypse movement of the 1930s and '40s.Later he was to all but disown these works, dismissing them as obscure and meaningless.

His poetic rebirth took place with the publication of Riding Lights in 1955. It was a complete contrast to his earlier works, being strictly formal, metrical, rhyming and utterly lucid. The timing of the publication was such that he could have been associated with The Movement, a poetic grouping of poets at just that time. Indeed many of the forms and themes of his work fitted with the ideas of The Movement but he remained separate from that group, perhaps on account of his Scottishness — all of the movement poets were English. A label that has been attached to MacCaig, that he seemed to enjoy (as an admirer of John Donne) is Metaphysical.

Later

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In later years he relaxed some of the formality of his work, losing the rhymes and strict metricality but always strove to maintain the lucidity. He became a free verse poet with the publication of Surroundings in 1966. Seamus Heaney has said his work 'is an ongoing education in the marvellous possibilities of lyric poetry.' Whilst Ted Hughes wrote, 'whenever I meet his poems, I'm always struck by their undated freshness, everything about them is alive, as new and essential, as ever.' Another poet, beside Donne, that MacCaig claimed was a great influence on his work was Louis MacNeice. Although he never lost his sense of humour, much of his very late work, following the death of his wife in 1990, is more sombre in tone. The poems appear to be full of heartbreak but they never become pessimistic.

An example of this is his poem "Praise of a Man" which was quoted by Gordon Brown in the eulogy he gave at the funeral of Robin Cook in 2005.

The beneficent lights dim
but don't vanish.
The razory edges
dull, but still cut.
He's gone:
but you can see
his tracks still, in the snow of the world

Recognition

• 1985 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry
• 1975 Cholmondeley Award

Publications

Poetry

• Far Cry. London: Routledge, 1943.
• The Inward Eye. London: Routledge, 1946.
• Riding Lights. London: Hogarth, 1955; New York: Macmillan, 1956
• The Sinai Sort. London: Hogarth, 1957; New York: Macmillan, 1957.
• A Common Grace. London: Hogarth, 1960; Dufour, 1961.
• A Round of Applause. London: Hogarth, 1962, Dufour, 1963.
• Measures. London: Hogarth, 1965, Dufour, 1966.
• Surroundings. London: Hogarth, 1967.
• Rings on a Tree. London: Hogarth, 1968.
• A Man in My Position. London: Hogarth, 1969; Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1970.
• Three Manuscript Poems. Rougemont, 1970.
• Selected Poems. London: Hogarth, 1971.
• Penguin Modern Poets 21 (with George Mackay Brown & Iain Crichton Smith). London: Penguin, 1972.
• The White Bird. London: Hogarth, 1973.
• The World's Room. London: Hogarth, 1974.
• Tree of Strings. London: Hogarth, 1977.
• Old Maps and New: Selected poems. London: Hogarth, 1978.
• The Equal Skies. London: Hogarth, 1980.
• A World of Difference. London: Hogarth, 1983.
• Voice Over. London: Chatto & Windus, 1989
• Collected Poems. London: Hogarth, 1985
  • revised edition, Trafalgar Square, 1991.
• Voice-over. London: Hogarth, 1988.
• Seven Poets (with others; edited by Hugh MacDiarmid). State Mutual Book and Periodical Service, 1989.
• Three Scottish Poets (with Edwin Morgan & Liz Lochhead; edited by Roderick Watson). Trafalgar Square, 1993.
• Selected Poems (edited by D. Dunn). London: Chatto & Windus, 1997.
• The Poems of Norman MacCaig (edited by Ewen MacCaig) Polygon, 2009.

Edited

• Honor’d Shade: An anthology of new Scottish poetry to mark the bicentenary of Robert Burns. W. & R. Chambers, 1959.
• Contemporary Scottish Verse, 1959-1969 (edited with Alexander Scott). Edinburgh: Calder & Boyards, 1970.

Aunt Julia, Norman MacCaig. Poetry reading

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

See also

• List of British poets

External links

Poems

• "Smuggler"
• Norman MacCaig 1910-1996 at the Poetry Foundation
• Norman MacCaig at the Scottish Poetry Library (11 poems)
• "A Corner of the Road, Early Morning" Poem of the Week at The Guardian

Audio / video

• Norman MacCaig at YouTube

Books

• Norman MacCaig at Amazon.com

About

• Norman MacCaig at The Write Stuff
• MacCaig on BBC.co.uk
• Norman MacCaig: An interview with Jennie Renton, 1987
• "Self and Otherness in Norman MacCaig's Poetry" at Poetics of the Subject