Glacier—An Icebound View of the Firth of Forth

Imagine when the Firth of Forth—the estuary at the heart of Scotland—is all glacier, the country around it frozen solid. Imagine, as the ice melts, the shores gradually repopulated by plants, animals, and people, until the Forth is the main conduit between a society with imperial ambitions and the rest of the world.

Garry MacKenzie’s poem-essay about the Firth of Forth flows implacably forward in time, from the Last Ice Age to the present. In its relentless movement, it sweeps along in its path the sedimented layers of history and literature—stories, texts, and fragments that bear witness to the ecological and human histories of Scotland. As the glacier-scoured land takes its modern shape, the poem reflects on what is carried from the past into the present, and asks how poetry can address the complexity—the accumulated guilt and glory—of the past.

加里·麥肯齊（Garry MacKenzie）對蘇格蘭福斯灣的詩意探索。匯集歷史、地質和文學。

（英文版）

Garry MacKenzie’s book-length poem Ben Dorain: a conversation with a mountain was shortlisted for a Scottish National Book Award and long-listed for the Highland Book Prize. He has published two pamphlets with Clutag Press, and his next collection Firth, a portrait of the human and ecological histories of the Firth of Forth, will be published by The Irish Pages Press in 2026.

Garry MacKenzie 的長篇詩 Ben Dorain: a conversation with a mountain 入圍蘇格蘭國家圖書獎短名單，並進入高地圖書獎長名單。他與 Clutag Press 出版過兩本小冊子，而他的下一部詩集 Firth，是一部描繪福斯灣人類與生態歷史的作品，將於 2026 年由 The Irish Pages Press 出版。