Slow air - Robin Robertson

A Painted Field - Robin Robertson's first collection - was published in 1997 to unanimous acclaim. In language both sensuous and coolly forthright, the poems in Slow Air describe the arc of loss, the search for grace, and the radiances and shadows of the natural world - the work pitching its embattled romanticism, its lyric weight, against fear, grief and erasure.

Praise for A Painted Field

'The genius of this Scots poet is for finding the sensually charged moment . . . and depicting it in language that is simultaneously spare and ample.' New Yorker

'A superb debut . . . darkly chiselled poems haunted by mortality and the fragility of life's pleasures' Kazuo Ishiguro, Sunday Times Books of the Year

'Robin Robertson is instantly recognizable as a poet of vivid authority, commanding a surprised, accurate language of his own. The evocative truth and the crystalline ring of his words, line by line, make a kind of hope in themselves. This is a first book of extraordinary gifts and assured maturity.' W. S. Merwin

'In a good year for Scottish poetry, Robin Robertson's A Painted Field stood out for its honesty, insight and sheer lyrical power.' John Burnside, Scotsman Books of the Year

'Robin Robertson is a master of the poetic line; this is wonderful work, at once muscular and delicate, ringing with a plangent, bitter music. A marvellous debut.' John Banville

'A Painted Field is stunning; I do feel strongly that Robin Robertson's poems are some of the best being written these days . . . it is a first collection of extraordinary quality.' Bernard O'Donoghue

'Robin Robertson's poems have a consummate finish; yet their choice, balance and form intensify the disturbance they create . . . Poems such as "The Flaying of Marsyas" and the cycle of poems "Camera Obscura" are astonishing displays of the depth and range of a new voice that will, with this volume, become well known and sought after.' Seamus Deane

'The best new poet in Britain is Robert Robertson.' Andrew O'Hagan, Independent on Sunday Books of the Year