Hill of DoorsCharged with strangeness and beauty, Hill of Doors is a haunted and haunting book, where each successive poem seems a shape conjured from the shadows, and where the uncanny is made physically present. The collection sees the return of some familiar members of the Robertson company, including Strindberg – heading, as usual, towards calamity – and the shape-shifter Dionysus. Four loose retellings of stories of the Greek god form pillars for the book, alongside four short Ovid versions. Threaded through these are a series of pieces about the poet’s childhood on the north-east coast, his fascination with the sea and the islands of Scotland. However, the reader will also discover a distinct new note in Robertson’s austere but ravishing poetry: towards the possibility of contentment – a house, a door, a key – finding, at last, a ‘happiness of the hand and heart’. Magisterial in its command and range, indelibly moving and memorable in its speech, Hill of Doors is Robin Robertson’s most powerful book to date. |
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23rd psalm Acknowledgements ANNUNCIATION Actaeon allthe Ampelos andfell andthe atthe BEINN RUADHAINN blood blue body border boy’s brocken spectre broken bull butcher’s COFFEE POT cormorant corner Corryvreckan coyote Crimond dark deer Dionysiaca Dionysus dogs DREAM HOUSE empty eyes Famine fawnskin flowers forest ghost glass Gnawingat goddess grew grey hair hands hanging head HILL OF DOORS Horndaft horns HOUSE OF ENVY HOUSE OF RUMOUR huge inthe night Jessie Seymour keys knew knullhår legs lifting look love’s manikin’s readytodie Mesquite Metamorphoses mountain mouth never Nonnus Notes & Acknowledgements ofthe onthe Ovid pines Port na hAbhainne Portnahaven Punchinello’s Farewell red door river Robin Robertson rocks round satyrs Sawtan’s singing Sleep slipped Smoke inthe spilling stood Straw Manikin streaming STRINDBERG IN SKOVLYST tail theglass there’s TheThirst Tiepolo tighten Tillydrone Motte tothe tracks trees tulach draighionn underthe watching waves wire woods Zeus