Two Men at Once' is one of Norman MacCaig best known poems. He was indeed two men at once: Edinburgh, the city where he was born and lived as a teacher and poet, was his home, but no other place shaped his poetry more than Assynt in Sutherland. It is here that he would spend many a summer on family holidays, walking the hills and fishing the lochs. MacCaig’s fresh eye saw remarkable newness even in the everyday and each poem is a tiny revelation, a new look at an old friend. This collection celebrates, renews, and rediscovers Norman MacCaig’s Assynt.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword Ewen McCaig
• Introduction Roderick Watson
• ‘Long journey back’
  • Back to Sutherland after a long absence
  • Inverkirkaig Bay
  • Climbing Suilven
  • Swimming lizard
  • Maiden Loch
  • Haycock, Achiltibuie
  • Goat
• ‘Enviable landscapes’
  • Memory two ways
  • Sound of the sea on a still evening
  • Spraying sheep
  • Culag Pier
  • Midnight, Lochinver
  • High up on Suilven
  • Moorings
  • Poachers, early morning
  • Byre
  • Water tap
  • Loch Sionascaig
  • July evening
  • A voice of summer
  • No accident
  • Signs and signals
  • Fire water
  • Sandstone mountain
  • Bull
  • Sheep dipping, Achmelvich
  • By Achmelvich bridge
  • A corner of the road, early morning
  • Remembering old Murdo scything
  • Struck by lightning
  • Winter
  • Among scholars
  • Fetching cows
  • Falls pool, evening
  • Vestey’s well
  • Two shepherds
  • Waiting to notice
  • In this wild day
  • Above Inverkirkaig
  • On a cloudy mountain
  • Looking down on Glen Canisp
  • Illumination: on the track by Loch Fewin
  • Humanism
  • Between
  • Moment musical in Assynt
  • Small round loch
  • Old rose bush
  • Basking shark
  • Dancing minister
  • Country dance
  • Lord of Creation
  • Walking to Inveruplan
  • Descent from the Green Corrie
  • So many summers
• ‘The misty landscape of history’
  • A man in Assynt
  • No end no beginning
  • Centre of centres
• ‘Back again’
  • Back again, Lairg station
  • July landing
  • Lesson
  • Greenshank
  • Birthdays
  • The Pass of the Roaring
  • In everything
  • Reversal
  • Stag in a neglected hayfield
  • A. K. ’s summer hut
  • Small rain
  • Praise of a road
  • Praise of a collie
  • Praise of a boat
  • Praise of a thorn bush
  • Small lochs
  • Stonechat on Cul Beg
  • Summer evening in Assynt
  • 1,800 feet up
  • Poems for Angus (1976–78)
  • Notes on a winter journey, and a footnote
    • A. K. MacLeod
    • Highland funeral
    • A month after his death
    • Triple burden
    • Comforter
    • Praise of a man
    • From his house door
    • Angus’s dog
    • Dead friend
    • In memoriam
    • Defeat
  • Tighnuilt – the House of the Small Stream
  • Off Coigeach Point
  • Me as traveller
• ‘Notations’
  • Notations of ten summer minutes
  • Highland games
  • View with no prospect
  • Toad
  • Local dance
  • Gamekeeper’s widow
  • Invasion of bees
  • Two thieves
  • Camera man
  • One more
  • Summer idyll
  • Running bull
  • On the Lairg to Lochinver bus
  • Pastoral
  • Found guilty
  • Highland barbecue
  • On the north side of Suilven
  • At the Loch of the Pass of the Swans
  • Everywhere at Loch Roe
  • A man walking through Clachtoll
  • On the pier at Kinlochbervie
  • Haymaking
• ‘Honey and salt’
  • Between mountain and sea
  • On a croft by the Kirkaig
  • Crofter
  • On Lachie’s croft
  • Perfect evening, Loch Roe
  • Wester Ross, West Sutherland
  • Sargasso Sea
  • Maps
  • The Loch of the Peevish Creek
  • Idling at sea
  • At the foot of Cul Mor
  • Two men at once
  • Country lover
  • Sunset at Clashnessie
  • Things behind each other
  • In the croft house called The Glen
  • Image of a man
  • Assynt and Edinburgh
  • Gale at Stoer Point
  • A small corner with a space in it
  • On Handa
  • Processes
  • By the Three Lochans
• Index of titles