Poems, Scots and English

Description

Insomnia by Sir James Sawyer is a collection of poems written in the World War I era. The book blends Scots dialect and English verse to explore Scottish rural life, faith, memory, and the shocks of modern war, with classical echoes and ballad tones running throughout. The collection is arranged in two parts, “Scots” and “English.” The Scots poems capture Border voices and scenes: a satiric letter on church controversy, a shepherd’s gruff lament for declining men and sheep, playful domestic refrains, love of the “South Countrie,” and humble reckonings with conscience. Bucolic pastorals recast Theocritus in Lowland speech, and a powerful wartime sequence renders billets, assault, home-leave grief, the steadying ring of a kirk bell, and elegy for fallen friends. The English poems widen the canvas with tributes and landscapes, a pilgrim’s prayer for adventure tempered by moorland peace, songs of the soldier of fortune and the wandering singer, a call out of complacency, the exile’s homesickness at Avignon, a gipsy love-ballad, woodland magic that nods to old gods, a sea captain’s far quest and steadfast love, and light classical epigrams. Together they form a clear, musical homage to place, courage, loss, and the durable consolations of home. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Subjects

• Scotland -- Poetry
• PR