More Richly in Earth: A Poet’s Search for Mary MacLeod, McGill-Queen’s University Press, May 2024.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary Figures; BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs; TRAVEL / Special Interest / Literary. 288 Pages, 6 x 9, ISBN 9780228021124, Formats: Cloth $34.95 CAD/ $29.95 USD / £22.50 GBP eBook available. More Richly in Earth | McGill-Queen’s University Press (mqup.ca)
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More Richly in Earth is a compelling exploration of the mystery of a 17th century Scottish Gaelic bard and her intersection with a Canadian poet.”
Long-listed for the Saltire Literary Prize :https://www.saltiresociety.org.uk/the-saltire-society-literary-awards-2024-longlist
“More Richly in Earth has an intricate structure, weaving together memoir, conversation, poetry, and literary investigation. As we accompany Bowering on her search for Mary MacLeod, we are released with her into mystery’s delight.” Jan Zwicky
“This book is a major work: it deals in detail with the life and poetry of an important Gaelic poet of the 17th century; her place as a woman poet in a male-dominated society; it delves deeply into the nature of poetry, its sources and inspiration itself; makes correspondences between Canada and Scotland, particularly how her own journey as poet links to her childhood upbringing in British Columbia; it is a work of imagination and scholarship . . ..I highly recommend it.” Maoilios Caimbeul / Myles Campbell https://www.mqup.ca/filebin/pdf/Maoilios_Caimbeul_Review.pdf
“Both grand in scale and gorgeously, lyrically intimate, More Richly in Earth holds readers close along on Bowering’s search after a myth-shrouded Scottish poet. Yet at its heart, it is something more powerful, more mysterious. As though faced with a great tree on some weathered headland, we are captivated by the skyward questing of its branches, all the while its roots weave themselves down deep into the earth.” Patrick James Errington, author of The Swailing’
“This book is both a brilliant investigation of a 17th-century female Gaelic-language Scottish bard and a fascinating personal memoir. It’s also beautifully written, extraordinarily insightful, and a superb meditation on poetry. I couldn’t put it down.” Russell Thornton
More Richly in Earth is the story of what brought her into the life of the Canadian poet and novelist, Marilyn Bowering. Bowering’s quest to unravel the nature of their connection and the puzzle of radically different accounts of Mary’s life and work becomes an exploration of the richness of cross-culture affinity despite differences of language, history, time, and place. Bowering brings a poetic sensibility to her journeys in the Hebrides and her conversations with poets and scholars, weaving in accounts of the Newfoundland grandmother who shaped her thinking and the west coast landscape in which she grew and made her home.
Vocation, age, commitment to poetic thinking and Bowering’s rigorous research draw these two poets together in an act of recovery and restoration as Bowering recounts stories preserved within landscape, memory, and identity. More Richly in Earth is not only investigative scholarship, but a profound reflection on the necessity of art.
from the readers’ reports: … a lovely, compelling contribution to our knowledge, awareness, and understanding of Mary and, perhaps most especially, to the potential for beauty and power within connections to the past …to the hidden stories within landscape; or to ourselves, and the layers of memory, feeling, and identity which are still always within our reach … it will have immense appeal to general readers with interests in Scottish history and culture, especially Highlands and Islands; in untold and marginalised histories of women; and in reflective nature and landscape writing. It also points to some connections between Mary’s work, context, and culture and issues of deep resonance within our present moment (indigenous rights; the environmental crisis; understanding of the complexity of personal identity more broadly) … it is beautifully written, with a striking combination of lucidity and depth.