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A glass of cold water, mid-afternoon - MacDiarmid on Whalsay - Poem
Literary Review, Wntr, 2002 by Alan Riach
A Glass of Cold Water, Mid-Afternoon Some like it hot, after dinner, but poets know their preference: A house at home in Arctic winds in the outbreak of war, the North Sea when it was the German, spike-helmetted, silver and black, glittering (ever the best in uniform, the Nazi sky and ocean, inhumanly and humanly unmerciful). And you're there trying hard, doing what you can to help the listed poems escape. Weather is one thing, daily, accumulating change. This is another: this is the climate. Set yourself against it: the words lean on the window-panes and rattle their frames like iron bars; night and the stormtroops lean in.
Alan Riach, formerly Associate Professor of English and Pro-Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, is now Head of the Department of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow. Riach's books include Clearances, First & Last Songs, Open Return, This Folding Map, and a critical study, & Hugh MacDiarmid Epic Poetry. Riach is also the series editor of the collected works of Hugh MacDiarmid, published by Carcanet Press.
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