W.S. Graham and his Scottish contemporaries

Riach, A. (2012) W.S. Graham and his Scottish contemporaries. Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry, 4(1), pp. 65-75.

Abstract

This article considers W.S. Graham's poetry in the context of the major Scottish poets contemporary with him, Hugh MacDiarmid, Sorley MacLean,Norman MacCaig, Iain Crichton Smith, George Mackay Brown and Edwin Morgan. His friendship with Morgan, revealed in their correspondence, and his relationship with Scotland and Scottish literature, are explored, and his poems are read with attention to his identification of Scotland as both his boyhood home and a haunting location from which he remained isolated through most of his life and writing career. His longing to return there is seen to inform essential aspects of his poetic achievement, giving unsentimental power and poignancy to individual poems and the comprehensiove ethos of his work.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Riach, Professor Alan
• Authors: Riach, A.
• Subjects: P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General); P Language and Literature > PR English literature
• College/School: College of Arts > School of Critical Studies > Scottish Literature
• Journal Name: Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry
• ISSN: 1758-2733