The Last Verses of Beccán
WINNER OF THE MICHAEL MARKS AWARD FOR POETRY 2019
A new poem and sound sequence. Bilingual poetry, field recording and sound composition explore medieval hermitage, sea-exile, ecology and language hybridity. The project is an engagement with the 7th-century Gaelic poet Beccán mac Luigdech, a monk of Iona and a hermit on Rum, with field recordings made in the inner Hebrides.
The Last Verses of Beccán is published by Guillemot Press, February 2019.
Reviews and praise:
‘The winner of this year’s Michael Marks Poetry Award is a tour de force of strategies pushing the lyric to its extreme; here, language is wrenched and stretched at every turn, and only in considering the sequence as a whole do we begin to comprehend the complex behaviours of its character, who is likewise driven to the limits. The winning pamphlet felt as though it could only have existed in this form. Its fleeting examination of unhinged practice befits the delicacy and intensity of its slender medium. Unnerving, disturbing and otherworldly, this is poetry of daring and, in spite of itself, sonic beauty.’ – Judges’ Comments, Michael Marks Awards
‘Quietly seething’ – Camille Ralphs, Times Literary Supplement
‘In wave-gnawed whispers remnants of Gaelic, of Latin, of Old English are heard, words that survive only in manuscripts, or have shifted meaning, fallen out of use … a concern for language, for memory and for relations of person to place.’ – Mark Leahy, Stride Magazine. Read the full review here.
A first performance took place in October 2017 at ANATHEMA, Arnolfini Centre for Contemporary Arts; further performances took place at Poetry in Expanded Translation, Bangor University, April 2018 and at the Projectivisms Symposium, Cardiff University, May 2018.
Listening through headphones or quality speakers is recommended.
crossaing wavestraig wæbhestray
wild regain foam flagra
[...]
HIS BODY ON GREY WAVES