Spell of Watching, A

Hamish Whyte was born in 1947 near Glasgow, where he lived before moving to Edinburgh in 2004. He is a former librarian, indexer, crime fiction reviewer and Honorary Research Fellow in Scottish Literature, University of Glasgow. He has published several collections of poems, edited many anthologies and runs the award-winning Mariscat Press. With his partner, the poet Diana Hendry, he was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship in 2007. He is a member of Edinburgh’s Shore Poets and drummer with bands Dekoy and Self Righteous Brothers.

On Window on the Garden

‘Like Joni Mitchell and James Joyce deciding to rewrite Thomson’s The Seasons in the style of Sappho.’ – James Wood, Scotland on Sunday

On A Bird in the Hand

‘Contains a number of poems so pellucid they don’t call for explication. His poem “Otis”, about [his] cat, is the best I’ve read on the subject since Hardy’s.’ – Robert Nye, Scotsman

On Things We Never Knew

‘Tightly crafted vignettes meticulously observed and subtly nuanced. He evokes the whateverness of things with a deft sense of period and lovely character touch. Time and again an apposite image or aperçu pins down a poem with economy and poise. And his familial memories, fondly threaded with humour, illumine the joys and tremors governing our own lives.’ – Stewart Conn

‘A poet at the lucid summit. [He] presents us with instants of great emotional depth in a manner that seems beguilingly simple.’ – Mandy Haggith, Northwords Now

On Now the Robin

‘Whyte is writing in the present, in the small world of everyday and its birds. So a pared-back simplicity in language suits this subject. We need poets like Hamish Whyte to continue naming what we see – and showing the world so exactly.’ – D.A. Prince, Sphinx