Scales Dog
New and Selected Poems

Hutchison is a "poet's poet" who has been setting standards outside the mainstream, but is now attracting a broader audience too. "Scales Dog" is a book which ranges widely with invention and delight. It is distinctively Scottish in some respects - but the appeal is international. It has depth and humour to carry its readers all the way through.

Singling out "An Ounce of Wit to a Pound of Clergy" - which is the opening poem in the collection "Carbon Atom", and was published as a pamphlet by Gael Turnbull - Ian Hamilton Finlay said: "The Hutchison piece is fascinating to me ...really good, energetic, knotty, interesting". Gael Turnbull added his own praise when invited to comment on on early draft of "Scales Dog" by writing: "There are a dozen or so poems in the collection which register for me as having a totally unique quality, a momentum and richness, an energy and an edge, quite unlike anything I know written by anyone else". Recently, Hutchison's work has sparked a response from a broader audience, and he is recognised by contemporary writers as a poet whose work has cut its own channels gradually, and is steadily gaining in reputation. "Scales Dog" is a book which ranges widely with invention and delight. It is distinctively Scottish in some respects - but the appeal is international. It has depth and humour to carry its readers all the way through.

Acknowledgements DEEP-TAP TREE To Freyja Mr Scales Walks His Dog Political Digression Climacteric
Of Akbar The Dead-Carn Shifting Slowly in the Drift A Slate Rubbed Smooth Riguarda The Death of Odinn THE MOON CALF The Moon Calf The Usual Story Goosegogs and Gorcocks Surprise, Surprise
Buchartie-boo Hyne Awa, Nae Howtowdie Helix Flyting
Gravity One, Fielder Zero 'En Mai Quant Naist La Rosee' Famous Last Words: "Lord Maunsie sniffed hard" "Within the courtyard of New College" "Well, we were sitting" "Ostler had been breathing" "It's nae aw that difficult efter aw" "Next to City Chambers" "It was simply the sound of his laughter" Switching Channels At the Brasserie Pique Fleurs-de Lys Carbuncle's Thrashing of the Tub Inchcolm CARBON ATOM 1 An Ounce of Wit to a Pound of Clergy West Coast Tally Alba Lady Scotter Sparks in the Dark Epitaph for a Butcher Jimp Excuse Me for Saying So Announcement By the Beef and Not Touching It
Mind the Gap Last Time Council Debate Resumes The Hat Citronella Sibilance: Swifts Brief Praise Poem
No Point Didn't Do
Annals of Enlightenment Pea and Ham Unfinished Business The Holt Incantation CARBON ATOM 2 Scota and Gaethelos Coup de Foudre
Heading in to the Bar
One Line at a Time Simply Platonic
Kanticle Rhetorical Devices Epistemology Receipt
Mao and the Death of Birds Cunty Fingers Hippertie-Skippertie Above Stromness Yeeaiow Phytogeny Carbon Atom No, No Grass of Levity She Said A Saturno Conditum Landing Hole House Farm Suona Per Te