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Moder Dy

Polygon New Poets
4.54 goodreads logo

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( 99 ratings, 21 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Moder Dy is the debut poetry collection by Shetland poet Roseanne Watt, weaving English with Shetlandic dialect to explore the profound connections between land, sea, and human experience. Through concise and vivid language, Watt invokes the Shetland landscape and the metaphor of the 'moder dy'—an elusive undercurrent that guides fishermen home—to illuminate personal and collective memory.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Ideal for readers interested in contemporary poetry, Scottish and Shetland culture, and those who appreciate lyrical explorations of nature and heritage.

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Written in English, interspersed with Shetlandic dialect throughout, this eagerly awaited debut collection from Shetland poet Roseanne Watt contains profound, assured and wilfully spare poems that are built from the sight, sound and heartbeat of the land as much as from the sea.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

The old Shetland fishermen still speak with something like reverence of the forgotten art of steering by the moder dy (mother wave), the name given to an underswell which it is said always travels in the direction of home.

Written in English, interspersed with Shetlandic dialect throughout, this eagerly awaited debut collection from Shetland poet Roseanne Watt contains profound, assured, and wilfully spare poems that are built from the sight, sound, and heartbeat of the land as much as from the sea. In rigorously controlled, concise, and vivid language, Watt offers glimpses of the landscape alongside which we find the most complex and mysterious of human experiences.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Critics praise Moder Dy for its strength, suppleness, and economy of language, comparing its sparseness to haiku. The collection's blend of English and Shetlandic dialect, with Watt's own translations, adds levity and precision. It is celebrated as an atmospheric and emotionally sensitive work that evokes the natural world with buoyancy and compassion.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781846974878

Publisher: Birlinn General

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 23 May 2019

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 5.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 195.0mm

Weight: 95g

Pages: 96

About the Author

Roseanne Watt is a poet, filmmaker and musician from Shetland. She is currently poetry editor forThe Island Reviewand was the winner of the 2015 Outspoken Poetry Prize (Poetry in Film) and runner up in the 2018 Aesthetica Creative Writing Award. In 2018, her debut collection,Moder Dy,won the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award;Moder Dywas also shortlisted for the 2019 Saltire Society Poetry Book of the Year Award. She lives and works between Edinburgh and Shetland.

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