I came to McCall Smith through his Von Igelfeld novellas, I am an academic, so I get it. And I was interested in this slim book of his poems.

McCall Smith's poetry is earnest, heartfelt, old-fashioned (it mostly rhymes and there's even a section of formal sonnets). It covers Covid in one, but others speak of books, his ancestral Scotland (a lot), animals, etc. It's all good, but most are un-spectacular. There are some great bits. Life-changing? Probably not. Influential? The literati probably will roundly ignore it. But, I like poetry and poets and interesting people. And McCall Smith, if he's anything, is an interesting fella. I'd like to share a pint with him and some tobacco in an old-fashioned pub. But the U.K. outlawed those. (And, by Jehovah, as an American, I'd want my pint to be cold!) He's a dying exemplar of a dying generation of a dying Empire. So I like it.

The lines that hit me the most are from "The Goodness of Books," Part IV "On the Bedside Table," p. 91:

"Pray that to our children
We shall give those books
We ourselves loved when young;"

Spectacular. ( )

I really enjoyed McCall Smith's poems. I thought most of them would focus on the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing, but the majority of the poems were likely written before that time. Many poems included featured Scottish themes. Poems are grouped by theme with an "unrelated" section at the end. I'm glad I picked this up at the library! I wouldn't mind owning a copy. ( )