Today Tomorrow: The Collected Poems of George Bruce, 1933-2000 - Softcover

Bruce, George

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0748662995 ISBN 13: 9780748662999

Publisher: Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited, 2001

Synopsis

A celebration of the life and work of poet George Bruce, with over 250 poems reflecting the changing personal and social experiences of the poet from childhood during World War I, up to the present day. The collection brings together poems published in collections since 1933, and includes uncollected poems previous to "Sea Talk" (1944) and new material following the publication of "Pursuit" (1999). This book reveals the impressive scope and development of Bruce's poetry. Taking in his earlier works and their concern with the constancy of the land, the enduring qualities of its inhabitants, and a poetry which stands for good humane values, the collection progresses to present day, exploring Bruce's interests in art and Haiku. As the years progress, this individual voice is increasingly lyrical and perceptive, and yet never loses touch with the facts of life. The new uncollected poems in this volume, written over the last two years, show a zest and breadth of vision which add to an on-going body of work, and to the poet's existing, considerable achievements.

About this title

From the Publisher

LUCINA PRESTIGE, Editor

While assisting George Bruce with the preperation of his manuscript for 'Pursuit: Poems 1986-1998' (published by Scottish Cultural Press) on 10 March 1999 - his ninetieth birthday - it occurred to me that ninety was the right age for a review of George Bruce's life of poetry - a long overdue collected work.

This book reveals the fascinating development of his poetry: from his earliest poems in 1933 through to the extraordinary achievement of his most recent writing, where he arrives at a new poetical dimension. His perceptive eye and youthful imagination are more in evidence than ever. This review of George Bruce's poetical journey should interest scholars and poetry lovers alike.

George Gunn sums up Bruce's lifetime of work perfectly, when he says (Chapman 2000):

'If Scotland's passage through the twentieth century has to be charted then we could do no better than to use the poems of George Bruce as a guide, for as he wrote of Velazquez...

He turned the searchlight of his mind
upon each and every object equally,
persons or things as if each in its
difference, might through the precision
of line and paint, each weighed in the
balance of a mind, would yield
final truth...

From the Author

I began to write verses when I was seven years old - or so my Aunty Madge told me. No doubt this was like other children, but I persisted. This book begins with poems written in 1933, but it was not until the late 1930s that the thrust of my poetry - its subject and style - compelled me to write as I did, resulting in the publication of 'Sea Talk' in 1944

It seemed to me then, when the death of a deteriorating civilisation was imminent, to put one's trust in the continuity of values as expressed in the life of a small community was against all logic. Yet largely unconsciously, in my attachment to the sensitive, economic style in Ezra Pound's 'Hugh Selwyn Mauberly', and the poetry of William Carlos Williams. I was aquiring the appropriate style for realising the fact and the sense of the fact; this in the first instance being the idea of the endurance, courage, integrity and skills of the fisherman, and associated with this the cliff, steady in a welter of waters. These became symbols of permanence. From such a base, and the happiness of my upbringing in a loving family, followed by the happiest of marriages, my poems tended to become, less a commentary on society and more a celebration of life.

Years later in 1996 I was presented with a photograph which showed a cliff crumbling. I felt devastated. The symbol of permanence had gone. Yet this had to be accepted. I wrote 'Cliff Face Erosion'. From then I found a new freedom, and also a new recognition of what my poems must encompass. I could look on the waters of the sea, and there was a new beginning waiting to be written on the page

Who reads the Book of the Sea reads the Book of Life

Now I wrote on a wider canvas. From the celebration of the wholeness of the creation of the earth, which we share with its creatures, as in 'The Fox and Lucina' to the Theatre of the Absurd in my tribute to Tadeusz Kantor. I must show in the imagination of poetry the disastrous effects on society of the misdealings of rulers and politicians. And after this book - who am I to tell?

Edition details

• Publisher: Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0748662995
• ISBN 13: 9780748662999
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 309
• Editor: Prestige Lucinda