Loss

As the boat limps into harbour,
listing heavily to leeward,
its bowsprit splintered
and mizzen hanging loose,
murmurs rise from the pier
to become a rousing cheer
at a successful homecoming—
not realising the hull
is holed below the waterline,
the dark brine seeping in.

There is a decidedly elegiac quality to this latest collection of Stewart Conn’s poems. But whether writing about his family, day-to-day life, personal love and loss and struggles with sources of inspiration, in his characteristically precise and often lighthearted way, he tells it as it is.

‘The emotional authority of Conn’s poems resides in a gentle but steely sense of humour, an understated irony and an unaffected compassion.’—Alan Riach, Scottish Literature: An Introduction