Scotland's off-shore poetry platform is getting quite a boost these days what with Jen Hadfield on the Shetland Isles (Byssus) and now Nial Campbell from South Uist has his first full collection: Moontide, published by Bloodaxe Books. His work is full of salt tang and sails the seas of place, being, memory and meaning. For me one of the best fresh new voices on the Scottish poetry scene. Campbell has moved to Edinburgh, so the prospects are good for this fine new voice, one to watch. Long may the ferryman whistle....

CROSSING

Say that the song was never written
would it have settled there, I wonder,
on that far shore of the tongue's river,
singing itself, stubbing its heels
into the bank that is pure air?

Or would it wait for further passage?
stood on the quay so long until
a form all spit and bone and light.

Am I some whistling ferryman,
trailing my pen hand in the wake?

Niall Campbell

CROSSING, strikes me as more than self-aware, revealing a reflective meditation on its own creation, a superb tight pen finds its element. My additional favourites are: LATER TASTING and the great story-telling in A DANCE MACARBE, and also WHEN THE WHALES BEACHED. ( )