The Book of St Andrews: An Anthology

The 'auld grey toon' of St Andrews occupies an unusual place within Scotland. Firstly, in a literal sense - it is unusual for anyone to pass through a town sitting out on the eye of the dog's head that is Fife – you don't go there by chance. Unusual too, since, for its size, it is very famous. Named after an apostle, once an opulent destination for pilgrims, still a renowned seat of learning. I have met Americans who would mouth its name just after that of London and who are surprised to find a small seaside town. Few towns have a floating population of nearly half the resident headcount. People – students, teachers, tourists - are coming and going.

Robert Crawford, originally from the West Coast, but long settled in St Andrews, where he is a Professor in the distinguished School of English, has collected the writings of some of these transients and settlers in The Book of St Andrews – An Anthology. There are snippets from worthies such as Johnson, Barrie and Scott, some short stories and selections from longer pieces of fiction, and also memoirs from Ian Rankin (who holidayed in the town as a child) and the American polymath Jay Parini, who taught at the University.

But St Andrews has always had its strongest literary associations with poets (a fact which inspired me, as a youngster born and bred there). Dunbar, Buchanan, Fergusson and Lang all studied there. Then, in the 20th century came Edwin Muir, Andrew Young, Tom Scott, Alastair Reid, even Rudyard Kipling, who was University Rector in the mid 1920s! Nowadays, the town is the workplace of Crawford, John Burnside, Kathleen Jamie, Don Paterson and Douglas Dunn, five highly esteemed poets.

This anthology finds room too for acclaimed poets such as Paul Muldoon and Les Murray who have been charmed while visiting. We must forgive them for remarking on the town's untidy architectural legacies and often inclement weather ('the grey warlock ocean,' says Kipling, 'Reformation bombsite,' says Murray, 'ruinous walls by tempests pined,' chimes Walter de la Mare). This is a fine collection of writings and deserves attention from all who have walked the long streets of Golf City.

While assembling The Book of St Andrews, Robert Crawford also found time to cherry-pick his own poetic works for Selected Poems, which was recently published by Cape. A central figure in the blossoming of Scottish poetry which has happened in the last two decades, he has been anthologist, theorist, proselytiser and panegyrist for the cause of Scottish verse.

Crawford is a craftsman and a stylist at heart - his knotty and winningly fanciful poems are packed with specifics, he neatly marries his interests in technology and the natural world. He has no fear of fun, nor of erudition. Being a Scot is evidently central to his existence – but never arduously so – and these poems about the flotsam of history, the vagaries of the Scottish quotidian, the various landscapes (internal and external) of the country, are both enjoyable and admirable.