Book description
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.
'McNeillie's special gift is for providing the pleasure that comes
from recognition: we can see ourselves in his poems.' - Rory Waterman,
TLS, 20 August 2010 Andrew McNeillie was born in North Wales in
1946 and read English at Magdalen College, Oxford. He is the
Literature Editor at Oxford University Press; in 2002 he established
the Clutag Press to publish poetry. His collection of poems Nevermore
(2000), in Carcanet's Oxford Poets series, was shortlisted for the
Forward Prize for Best First Collection. His collection Now, Then was
published by OxfordPoets/Carcanet in 2002.
