New writing to celebrate the Centenary of the birth of George Mackay Brown (1921-1996)
Salt Songs is a collection of 51 new poems and prose pieces inspired by the Orkney writer George Mackay Brown. His work reflects on continuity and change in Orkney, where he was born and brought up, and in the wider world. Seamus Heaney remarked that his writing involved ‘passing everything through the eye of the needle of Orkney’. That thread has in turn reeled out across continents and into many languages.
The new work here, a celebration of the centenary in 2021 of the writer’s birth, is by well-known and widely published writers and by those published here for the first time. By those whose connection with the place goes back through generations, and by those who have found a home and sense of belonging here more recently. By those who visit the islands – whether physically or in their imaginations. All are connected by the islands and their stories, past, present and future.
A fitting tribute to his legacy, these poems sing of the Orcadian land and seascapes that George Mackay Brown knew best. And yet there is light, freshness and verve in these poems that is wholly original. Salt Songs is a collection to cherish.
Linden Bickett, University of Edinburgh
Credit
First published in 2023 by The George Mackay Brown Fellowship
Design and Layout: Iain Ashman
Photographs: Iain Ashman, Pam Beasant, Yvonne Gray
Printed by: The Orcadian Ltd, Hell’s Half Acre, Hatston, Kirkwall, Orkney, KW15 1DY
Contributors: Vicky Allen, Lucy Alsop, C E Ayr, Gabrielle Barnby, Jeanne Bouza Rose, Penni Brown, Lorraine Bruce, Vera Butler, John Butterfield, Piers Cain, Louise Farquhar, Fiona Fleming, Sheila Garson, Jenne Gray, Ingrid Grieve, Barbara Johnston, Áine King, Julie Laing, Miriam Landor, Halszka Leleń, Colin J Leythorne, Jane McKie, Lesley M McLetchie, Sue Mara, Selin Tuzlan Mead, Donald S Murray, Larissa Reid, George Rendall, Olive M Ritch, Dilys Rose, Julie-ann Rowell, Fiona Sanderson, Babs Stevenson, Taylor Strickland, Chris Tait, Douglas Thompson, Lesley Traynor, Gordon Wright.
Product Details
Limp bound book: 80 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9566616-7-8
Price: £9.00 plus postage and packing
To Purchase . . .
PayPal button coming soon. If you would like to order from the GMB Fellowship now, please email gmbfellows@gmail.com.
You will find most of our books on sale from booksellers in Orkney:
Stromness Books and Prints – drop in at 3 Graham Place, Stromness, Orkney KW16 3BY, or order by telephone 01856 850565.
The Orcadian Bookshop – drop in at 14 Albert Street, Kirkwall, Orkney KW15 1HP, or order online at https://www.orcadian.co.uk/shop/
Where to . . .?
Eleven of the pieces of writing included in Salt Songs were selected by composers who wrote song settings or tone poems inspired by them as part of the Words into Music project. You can read more about this collaboration and listen to recordings of the music and a selection of the poems on the following pages.
Words into Music – the Project
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