Description
Book SynopsisA noctuary is a diary for the late hours. In Niall Campbell’s poems, this is a time for reflection, discovering what it means to be a young father, anxious, caring and protective, deeply connected to the new, precious life of another human being. The deftly lyrical poems in his second collection illuminate a night world of disturbed sleep and half dream, midnight feeds, the quiet of snowfall through the hours of dark. At the same time the grown man now living in the city reconnects with his own childhood on South Uist in the Outer Hebrides, the territory of his highly praised first collection, Moontide. Hearing his father’s voice in how he calls to his son, other images of the island’s seascapes, myths and wildlife return to him in Noctuary. Noctuary was shortlisted for the 2019 Forward Prize for Best Collection.
Trade ReviewFull of striking moments, the poems of Moontide are illuminated by powerful lyric impulses. -- David Wheatley * Guardian *
In his understated debut collection, Campbell, who spent his childhood on South Uist in the Outer Hebrides, draws on an intimately known landscape as witness to solitude and shared lives. -- Maria Crawford * Financial Times, Summer books 2014 *
With precise language, musicality and insight, Campbell’s first collection explores solitude, companionship and memory against a backdrop of closely observed nature. His intimate poems draw on the seascapes and myths of his native Eriskay, in the Outer Hebrides, but take the same sharp-focused eye to other places, too... Meditative and haunting – my favourite poetry book of 2014 so far. -- Juanita Coulson * The Lady *
Table of Contents13 Midnight 14 First Nights 15 Thinning Apples 16 First Illness 17 Keeping the Poacher’s Light 19 Crusoe, One Year on the Island 20 Clapping Game 21 All the Doubts of the Late Evening 22 Moth 23 Lyrics 25 Packhorse 26 The Address 28 Poacher 29 A New Father Thinks About Those Running Home 30 Dear, 31 The Night Watch 32 The Disembarked 33 Go There 34 The Water Carrier 35 Returning to Work 36 Measuring Heat Loss in the Arctic 37 Dream 38 Blackberries 39 Poetry When Working 40 An Island Vigil 41 The Cut 42 Four Memories in No Particular Order 43 Horseshoe Crab 44 Proof 45 Living in the City and Dreaming of the Winter Beach 46 Two Poems after Cuevas Lopes 46 Picking Day 47 Leaving Town 48 Other Branches 49 February Morning 50 Glasgow 51 Cooling a Meal by the Outside Door 52 Capture 53 Tightrope 54 Thirties 55 Language 56 From the Spanish 58 Good Night 61 Acknowledgements 63 Biographical note
