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Resources:

W.N. Herbert’s poetry at Amazon
Forked Tongue (1994)
Cabaret McGonagall (1996)
The Laurelude (1998),
The Big Bumper Book of Troy (2002)
Bad Shaman Blues (2006)

W. N. Herbert

W. N. Herbert is a highly versatile poet who writes both in English and Scots. Born in Dundee, he established his reputation with two English/Scots collections from Bloodaxe, Forked Tongue (1994) and Cabaret McGonagall (1996), followed by The Laurelude (1998), The Big Bumper Book of Troy (2002) and Bad Shaman Blues (2006). He is co-editor with Matthew Hollis of Strong Words: modern poets on modern poetry (Bloodaxe, 2000), and lives in a lighthouse overlooking the River Tyne at North Shields.
Shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Saltire Awards,Forked Tongue was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and a New Generation Poets title.Cabaret McGonagall was shortlisted for the Forward and McVities prizes, The Laurelude was a PBS Recommendation, and The Big Bumper Book of Troy was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award. Bad Shaman Blues (2006) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize.
From Bloodaxe Books
Find out more about W.N. Herbert at Bloodaxe Books.

Herbert’s translation of ‘Corbandie’
Corbandie

See the crow upon the wire
get roughed up by the wind
wrap untidy feathers round his head:

first he points into the blast
like a collie on the hill
at the clouds that split like sheep about his nose;

then he staggers, steps and flutters
till he dips his head and grips:
it’s as near as he gets to flying on the spot.

But he will not let it go
and be bustled by the breeze
though it gives him little smacks to make him fight

till the minute that he wants to,
then that bird leaps into heights
like a fleck of ash that’s flying from the fire.

And so it will be with you, my love,
and the child in your womb
in the hourless hour that lightens you of her;

since nobody can know
of the cause that makes her cry
‘There’s nothing I can do now but be born.’

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