Since the publication of his first collection, "Rough Seas", in 1987,
Tom Pow has been recognised as one of Scotland's foremost contemporary
poets; lyrical, celebratory and sensitive to the world around him. "In
The Becoming, New and Selected Poems" draws on Pow's work over the last
two decades, from "Rough Seas" (1987) to his latest book, "Dear Alice -
Narratives of Madness" (2008), including poems from "Sparks!", his
poetic correspondence with Diana Hendry, and "Transfusion", his praise
poem for Muhammad Ali and Nelson Mandela. The collection charts his
ongoing poetical concerns: an exploration of landscape from the
rainforest to the Arctic; an interest in how history and narrative shape
our understanding of the present; and, in the new poems, a maturing
engagement with those large themes that lie at the heart of Pow's
poetry, namely love and death. "In The Becoming" offers a timely reading
of one of the finest poets of his generation.
