Collyshangles in the Canopy

In the words of Alan Riach, who introduces this wide-ranging new collection of Ian Brown's poems, 'This book begins and is made of gifts ...What comes from far past and happens every day, in encounters, with people, poems, works of art, in friendships and families, are gifts that make our lives what they are.' The volume includes familiar works, and songs and poems from the author's performed but not published plays - 'returning, revisiting, reconnecting, yet also the moving on into the new' - with the bulk of the poems being published here for the first time.

About the Author :
Ian Brown is a playwright, poet and Professor emeritus in Drama at Kingston University, London. Formerly Arts Council of Great Britain Drama Director (1986-94), he was, until 2002, Professor of Drama and Dean of Arts at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. He was President of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies (until July 2015) and Chair (until June 2013) of the Scottish Society of Playwrights, of which he was founder Chairman (1973-75). He is a Visiting Professor in Scottish Literature at Glasgow University, and currently Convenor of the Saltire Society. He has written on a wide range of topics related to literature, theatre history, language and theatre, cultural policy, and Scottish culture.

Review :
'...a series of reflections upon life and loss, history and place, that slip and slide and insinuate themselves into our thoughts, hovering there like memories of conversations, scraps of monologue, various things people may have said, or might have been ... This is poetry of ordinary speech, then, of enactment.' Kirsty Gunn, DURA 2016; 'Ian Brown's poems conjure up a world of images and after-images, intimacies sacred and profane, and touching vignettes of times past. These range from laments and choruses from his supple Scots version of Antigone to heartfelt expressions of remembrance and loss. In some he breathes life into beloved ghosts, while others strike a note of unabashed physicality. And he vividly evokes and recalls widely diverse milieux and terrains in Scotland and abroad, from his mother's memory of pierrots in a Fife harbour to the indelible impact of sites of such cultural import as Lascaux and the Temple of Athene in Assos.' Stewart Conn; 'Ian Brown's poems take us on memorable journeys into the past and across the globe, while being rooted firmly in today's Scotland. They have the timeless quality that comes with their compelling intimacy and artistic integrity. This collection is like a familiar birdsong one hears when lost in a deep forest, which reaffirms the compassion and joy, love and longing that make our 'work-worn life' meaningful.' Bashabi Fraser; 'There is a long journey contained in this collection. Ian Brown has travelled far in geographical terms, but in these poems he keeps returning home. Not that this is straightforward: there are diversions of language (Scots, Gaelic, English, Italian and others), memories both painful and kind, jokes, asides and deeper reflections; and he recognises that the span of history overarches any single life's path. Most of all one takes from these pages a sustained wonder at being human, at being here at all: 'the weave of space and time is full of folk'.' James Robertson.