A taste of the ocean…

Posted on June 7, 2016

To celebrate the publication of Ian Stephen’s Maritime, a collection of poetry exploring this son of the sea’s lifelong love affair with all things aquatic, here’s a taster of one of his poems, the kind of verse that Robert Macfarlane describes as “distinguished by its precision. There is no surfeit to it. His poems are short and taut as well-set sails.”

Atlantic stones, Calanais

For ten at least of twenty-five years
I’ve been misleading travellers,
telling them the stones are most alive
under relentless drizzle.

Now in this accidental day
of Majorcan sun,
stones reveal contours.

Here, an igneous whorl
of bright greys in pink.
Here, a fold of green,
a malachite womb.