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Valda and Michael - MacDiarmid on Whalsay - Poem
Literary Review, Wntr, 2002 by Alan Riach
Valda and Michael I see her hands and arms, the strengths in bone and muscle, her fingers round the string run through the gills of sillocks, her clothes coarse and warm, her independence, guidance, giving, glee. Her laughter, lips, her voice. His voice. His march of childhood, sheer Shetlandic balance, care, assertiveness, set in a world where shelter is less frequent and more welcome, the edge never easy but ubiquitous, the crash and cry of gulls' flight, waves, time marked, ferries booming horns away, bells ringing into all the horizons opening out and closing in to deadlines.
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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