Now, Then

McNeillie Andrew

Illusions and delusions, joys and jokes, mysteries of memory and temporal paradox figure in Andrew McNeillie's new collection. Here are new sequences of bird poems, and tree poems, lines from an autobiography, lines from America, and poems about old age, in elegiac, ironic, and even vitriolic mode. These poems are about being and longing, belonging and not belonging in the world, past or present, now or then. They are about having and not having a home to go to. Haunted by the rapt, rural and wilderness gaze of childhood, youth and young manhood, the poems in Now, Then express worlds and times past of immediate sensual being and seeing "then" – "bubble-rapt" – in a "sound-warp... like a dipper submerged in a rushing pool" – before the world caught up with their author: now counting his blessings, cursing his luck as time flies faster in life's dark wood.

About the Author

Andrew McNeillie was born in North Wales and read English at Magdalen College, Oxford before becoming an editor and publisher. For many years he was literature editor at Oxford University Press. He has also held a chair in English at Exeter University where he is now Emeritus Professor. He is the founding editor of the magazine "Archipelago" and runs the Clutag Press. His memoir "Once" appeared in 2009 from Seren. His Carcanet poetry collections are "Nevermore" (Oxford Poets, 2000), "Now, Then" (2002), "Slower" (2006)", "In Mortal Memory" (2010) and "Winter Moorings" (2014). His memoir, "An Aran Keening", was published in 2001.

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