Norman MacCaig
Norman MacCaig
Norman Alexander MacCaig OBEwas a Scottish poet and teacher. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth14 November 1910
boys great-love lasts
I used to have a great love for Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, the big boys of the last century.
people want literature
I just didn't want to shoot other people.
real writing men
In some ways I'm a reticent man, and for quite a number of years there wasn't very much of my real true deep feelings in my writing.
light literature chuck
Well, I'm a light traveller. I chuck things away.
breathing conversation persons
It's like breathing in and out to me. It's like having a conversation with someone who isn't there. Because it has to be addressed to somebody - not a particular person, or very rarely.
thinking people way
In fact a lot of them I think are absolute baloney. Those Charles Olsens and people like that. At first I was interested in seeing what they were up to, what they were doing, why they were doing it. They never moved me in the way that one is moved by true poetry.
men thinking voice
When I talk of hearing a poet's voice speaking, I always think of it as in the presence of the man.
long people share
People haven't got the interest in long long works these days. A lack of interest which I share.
years american-poetry
I was very interested in American poetry for many years. Much less now.
book care firsts
I don't care whether a book is a first edition or not. I'm not a bibliophile in that word's natural sense.
teacher book paper
When I was a teacher, teachers would come into my classroom and admire my desk on which lay nothing whatever, whereas theirs were heaped with papers and books.
writing misunderstood
Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.
edinburgh ridiculous euthanasia
When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.
book fishing sides
All those authors there, most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side, that's the prose side, that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed.