An initial mapping of this book might say that it goes from the Orkneys to Polynesia via Scandinavia and the Baltic regions, the Iberian peninsula, and North America. But Kenneth White's method is impossible to sum up: the thing is to get out on the road with him. Along with, for example, three Quebeckers from the St Lawrence river-country through the forest and along the coast of Maine, or with an eleven-century Jewish poet across Spain. Other chapters will take the reader to the haunts of migrating cranes in Sweden, the misty margins of Portugal, across the plains of Poland, into the Atlas mountains, or along the coast of Norway into the Lofotens. The book ends on the atoll of Rangiroa in the Tuamotu archipelago, on a shore of dark jagged coral, wild bird cries and empty sea. The result of the whole complex process is an acutely increased sensation of life, a vastly enlarged experience of the world.
Kenneth White was born in Glasgow and studied at the universities of Glasgow, Munich and Paris. He began to be published in London in the 1960s, but broke with the British scene in 1967 and moved to France. He held the Chair of XXth century Poetics at the Sorbonne from 1983 to 1996, and in 1989 he founded the International Institute of Geopoetics. Kenneth White is the author of numerous books, including On Scottish Ground and House of Tides. He regularly lectures and tours in both Scotland and France and his appearances at the Edinburgh Book Festival sell out every year. He lives in Brittany.
Also available: Open World: The Collected Poems 19602000, ISBN 1904598013, ?20.
The Wanderer and His Charts, ISBN 1904598153, ?9.99, Publication August 2004
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