George Mackay Brown Critical Essay | Critical Review by Ray Olson

SOURCE: A review of Following a Lark and Selected Poems, 1954–1992, in Booklist, Vol. 93, No. 5, November 1, 1996, p. 475.

In the review below, Olson praises Brown as "one of the great contemporary poets of place."

When Brown died on April 13, 1996, one of the great contemporary poets of place died. Nearly 75, he had spent virtually his entire life in Orkney, the islands directly north of Scotland, refusing even invitations to be honored in England, which he visited only once. As he lived in Orkney, so he wrote of Orkney, whose history and perennial occupations, farming and fishing, were, together with the Christian holidays, the stuff of his writing. These books [Following a Lark and Selected Poems, 1954–1992] are the last new collection and the last retrospective selection of his verse that he made. The work in them is modern in its specific vocabulary, its combinations...
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