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To Lighten My House, Morgan & Morgan (US) 1953
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Oddments, inklings, omens, moments: poems, J M Dent 1960
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Passwords: places, poems, preoccupations, Little, Brown 1964
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Pablo Neruda, We Are Many (translator), Cape Goliard 1967
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Pablo Neruda, A New Decade: poems 1958-1967 (translator with Ben Belitt), Grove Press 1969
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Pablo Neruda, Extravagaria (translator), Cape 1972
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Pablo Neruda, Fully Empowered (translator), Souvenir Press 1976
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Jose Emilio Pacheco, Don't Ask Me How the Time Goes By: poems 1964-1968 (translator), Columbia University Press (US) 1978
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Weathering: poems and translations, Canongate 1978
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Pablo Neruda, Isla Negra: a notebook (translator), Souvenir Press 1982
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Heberto Padilla, Legacies: selected poems (translator with Andrew Hurley), Farrar, Straus, Giroux (US) 1982
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Whereabouts, North Point Press (US) 1987
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Luis Poirot, Pablo Neruda: Absence and Presence (translator), Norton 1990
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An Alastair Reid Reader: selected prose and poetry, University Press of New England (US) 1994
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Oases:Prose and Poetry, Canongate 1997
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Heberto Padilla, Antipodes (translator), Farrar, Straus, Giroux (US) 2004
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Pablo Neruda, On the Blue Shore of Silence: Poems of the Sea (translator), HarperCollins 2004
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When Now is Not Now, The Poetry Trust 2006
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A Balloon for a Blunderbuss (illustrated by Bob Gill), Phaidon Press 2008
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Inside Out: Selected Poetry and Translations, Polygon 2008
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Outside In: Selected Prose, Polygon 2008
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Pablo Neruda, Intimacies: Poems of Love (translator with Mary Heebner, illustrator), Harper 2008
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Alastair Reid Reading from his Poems, The Poetry Archive 2009
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Alastair Reid (b. 1926, Whithorn) is one of Scotland's foremost literary figures, admired as a craftsman in poetry, prose and translation. Since he left Scotland during World War II, he has lived variously in Spain, France, Switzerland, the United States and South America. Although based in New York, where he worked for many years on The New Yorker, he also spent considerable periods living in the Dominican Republic and has, in recent years, returned regularly to the Galloway countryside in Scotland.
Reid has published over 40 books including essays, poetry, children's books and translations of many distinguished poets. His publications include Weathering (1978), an early selected poems & translations, and Oases (1997), a collection of prose and poetry describing his friendship with writers such as Graves, Neruda and Borges. 2008 saw the publication of two long-awaited selections: Inside Out, devoted to Reid's poetry and translations, introduced by Douglas Dunn; and Outside In, a collection of his essays and fiction, introduced by Andrew O'Hagan.
As a traveller and linguist, Alastair Reid is also of significance in contemporary Scottish culture for reasons beyond his poetry. To many he represents, through his life and work, the open-hearted internationalism to which an increasingly self-confident Scotland aspires. While he has been a stern critic of the negative qualities of what he would call "the old Scotland" - in poems like 'The Academy' and 'Scotland' - he has never faltered in the respect he gives to his origins. Poems such as 'Whithorn Manse' and 'My Father, Dying' evince a longing for much more than the petty irritations of a hauden-doon culture. But it is to a wider world-view that much of Reid's poetry draws us - 'Curiosity', while ostensibly concerned with cats' insatiability, is an enjoinder to widen horizons; while 'Speaking a Foreign Language' is like an urging hand on the shoulder as we take those first faltering steps towards communication "to make the translation of / syntax into love."
Reading in a resonant, measured tone, Alastair Reid presents his work in an intimate style, pacing the words with precision and grace. Almost summing up his wandering life, his accent lies somewhere between America and Scotland, although his voice is very much his own; in this recording "...restored / to its spontaneity. The poem stays."
This recording was made on the 21st May, 2008 at the Audio Workshop, London and was produced by Richard Carrington.
Reid has published over 40 books including essays, poetry, children's books and translations of many distinguished poets. His publications include Weathering (1978), an early selected poems & translations, and Oases (1997), a collection of prose and poetry describing his friendship with writers such as Graves, Neruda and Borges. 2008 saw the publication of two long-awaited selections: Inside Out, devoted to Reid's poetry and translations, introduced by Douglas Dunn; and Outside In, a collection of his essays and fiction, introduced by Andrew O'Hagan.
As a traveller and linguist, Alastair Reid is also of significance in contemporary Scottish culture for reasons beyond his poetry. To many he represents, through his life and work, the open-hearted internationalism to which an increasingly self-confident Scotland aspires. While he has been a stern critic of the negative qualities of what he would call "the old Scotland" - in poems like 'The Academy' and 'Scotland' - he has never faltered in the respect he gives to his origins. Poems such as 'Whithorn Manse' and 'My Father, Dying' evince a longing for much more than the petty irritations of a hauden-doon culture. But it is to a wider world-view that much of Reid's poetry draws us - 'Curiosity', while ostensibly concerned with cats' insatiability, is an enjoinder to widen horizons; while 'Speaking a Foreign Language' is like an urging hand on the shoulder as we take those first faltering steps towards communication "to make the translation of / syntax into love."
Reading in a resonant, measured tone, Alastair Reid presents his work in an intimate style, pacing the words with precision and grace. Almost summing up his wandering life, his accent lies somewhere between America and Scotland, although his voice is very much his own; in this recording "...restored / to its spontaneity. The poem stays."
This recording was made on the 21st May, 2008 at the Audio Workshop, London and was produced by Richard Carrington.
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