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
impossible
And it's impossible for me to read Henry James.
passion years way
And in a way, that's been a help to me, because I take great passions for a particular poet - sometimes it lasts for many years, sometimes only for a while. This happens to everybody.
writing people happened
All I write about is what's happened to me and to people I know, and the better I know them, the more likely they are to be written about.
years eight dying
A terrible thing about getting oldish is that your friends start dying, and in the last ten years I have lost seven or eight of my closest.
men fishing killing
Well, I love fishing. I wouldn't kill a fly myself but I've no hesitation in killing a fish. A lot of men are like that. No bother. Out you come. Thump. And that's not the only reason.
water skins branches
Landscape is my religion. ...God in a green legend, I lean over the pool In a testament of leaves. I dangle my twinkling mood Before me in a cool cave roofed with branches And floored with a skin of water.
liars exercise use
I learned words, I learned words; but half of them died from lack of exercise. And the ones I use often look at me with a look that whispers, Liar.
book years lucky
There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books.
offering bird literature
However, I learned something. I thought that if the young person, the student, has poetry in him or her, to offer them help is like offering a propeller to a bird.
thinking taught poetry-is
And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so.
fishing miles five
When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me.