The Island in the Sound

Niall Campbell was born in 1984 on the island of South Uist, one of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. He received an Eric Gregory Award in 2011 and an Arvon-Jerwood Mentorship in 2013, and won the Poetry London Competition in 2013. His work has been published in a number of magazines and anthologies including, Granta, The Dark Horse, Poetry London, Poetry Review, The Salt Book of Younger Poets and Best Scottish Poems 2011. His debut pamphlet, After the Creel Fleet, was published by Happenstance Press in 2012. His first book-length collection, Moontide (Bloodaxe Books, 2014), won what was then Britain’s biggest poetry prize, the £20,000 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award, as well as the Saltire First Book of the Year Award; it was also shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize, and is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. First Nights: poems, a selection from Moontide with additional new poems, was published by Princeton University Press in the US in 2016. His second book-length collection, Noctuary (Bloodaxe Books, 2019), was shortlisted for the 2019 Forward Prize for Best Collection. He wrote the libretto for Draught, an opera by Anna Appleby, which was performed by the BBC Philharmonic in 2022. His third collection, The Island in the Sound, is published by Bloodaxe in 2024. He now lives in Fife.

Part I
13 ‘I am so Happy. I am so Happy. I Loved my Life’
14 Apprenticeship
15 Island Sonnets: Fugay
16 The Sparrow’s Legs
17 The Night Birds
18 Inside the Trojan Horse: A War Poem
19 Tongues of Water
20 Love Letters from the Tenth Year of Marriage, letter 3
22 After the Language Deprivation Experiment
25 A Man Carrying His Own Door
26 The Night Auditor
27 Hamelin
28 Morning Lessons
29 Three Folk-tale Characters Who Are Definitely Not Metaphors for the Poem
32 Island Sonnets: Delos
33 The Death of the Birds
34 They Have Crept Down,
35 Barn Owl on Newburgh Road
36 Love Letters from the Tenth Year of Marriage, letter 6
37 A Car for Jacob
38 Island Sonnet: Eriskay
39 The Cockle-picker
40 The Salmon of All Knowledge
42 The Islander as a Theatre Barman Before the Ballet
43 An Afterlife of Those Who Build
44 The Flesh Tree
45 Island Sonnets: Sandy Island
46 Theology
47 Love Letters from the Tenth Year of Marriage, letter 4
48 The Cured
50 Pastimes
51 Island Sonnets: Lingay
52 Learning to Drink Seawater
53 Lighthouse Keeper, Believing
54 The Gift

Part II
57 Life Mask of William Blake
58 The Harpy of Rubha Meall Nan Caorach
61 Listening to the Accent of Borges
62 Houdini
63 Beginnings
65 Island Sonnets: The Poem
66 The Burning of the Bridge
67 After the Ending of the World
68 First Fires
69 From the Devil’s Songbook
70 Love Letters from the Tenth Year of Marriage, letter 2
71 Island Sonnets: Mingulay
72 The Egg Gatherers of St Kilda
73 The End of Heaven
75 On the Deep Ocean
76 Mouse
77 Love Letters from the Tenth Year of Marriage, letter 1
78 Rosemary
79 On the Bone Oracles
80 Wildness
81 Lighthouse Keeper, Doubt
82 Island Sonnets: The Shadow
83 What is the Poem?
84 Love Letters from the Tenth Year of Marriage, letter 8
86 Blackbird Psalm
87 The Transformed Fight
88 The Windows
89 The Nine Billion Names
91 The Sound

93 Acknowledgements
95 Biographical note