�A Painted Field� was lauded by critics for its succinct phrasing and precisely crafted poetry. Kazuo Ishiguro, writing in the Sunday Times, wrote that it was �a superb debut�darkly chiselled poems haunted by mortality and the fragility of life�s pleasures�, whilst John Banville thought that �Robin Robertson is a master of the poetic line.�

It won a number of prizes that year, including the 1997 Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the Saltire Scottish First Book of the Year Award, and its success helped establish Robertson as one of the leading new British poets.

The decade that followed produced some of the most diverse and energetic poetry in Britain. Collections from poets such as Helen Farish, Jacob Polley, Tobias Hill, Roddy Lumsden, Leontia Flynn and Pascale Petit, as well as from established poets like Simon Armitage, Paul Muldoon, Moniza Alvi, Don Paterson and Seamus Heaney proved that British poetry was at its best.

So it is testament to the skill of Robin Robertson that the poems in �A Painted Field� are still as fresh as they were in 1997.

The book is divided into a sequence of fifty-six poems that are connected by the theme of mortality, and a sequence called �Camera Obscura�, a portrait of the pioneering 19th century Edinburgh photographer, David Octavius Hill.

�A Painted Field� still sparkles with the same energy and imagination that grabbed me when I first read them all those years ago. The first sequence is full of moments that make the reader stop and think.

Robertson's �Oyster�, full of vivid imagery and phrasing, is a good example of this. The poem is a poised and delicate treatise on mortality that reaches its climax with the lines �suck it from its mouth of pearl / and chew, never swallow / This is not sex, remember / you are eating the sea�. The unexpected shift that happens in the final stanza occurs throughout the collection and adds a dynamic element to the poetry.

There is a hint of the surreal in poems like �Oyster�. This seems to be a nod to Charles Simic and his influence seems to be particularly evident in �Artichoke� and �Moving House� with its fantastic final image of �The fridge ticks with water, dripping / the kitchen bobs towards me in the night�. Robertson innovatively reimagines Simic�s trademark style of taking ordinary things and adding a surreal spin to them.

This is sat alongside with the earthy settings of many his poems. Many are located in the countryside, amongst the rugged landscape of North East Scotland and the harsh conditions of winter. This provides a fitting backdrop to some of his most intimate poems such as the elegy �In Memoriam David Jones�. The coldness of the landscape is used effectively by Robertson to provide a fitting resonance with the theme of mortality that runs throughout the sequence. �Cloud darkens the sea like gathering shoal / and a grey seal surfaces, astonished / on a scene that stays the same / sinks back phantom and is towed under,� he writes. Winter is compared neatly with death, both being inescapable.

The maturity of Robertson�s writing enables him to tackle subjects like mortality without discolouring the line with over-emotion. The exactness of detail seen in poems like �Lithium�, a poem about a manic-depression sufferer, demonstrate not only this (seen with the factuality of �A metal that floats on water / must be kept in kerosene,� but a clarity of thought glimpsed in the symbolism of the lithium in the poem.

This detail is used to great effect in the sequence, �Camera Obscura.� The personal and artistic life of David Octavius Hill is told in a series of letters intermixed with poems about family and about events happening in the city of Edinburgh. Poems such as �Circus on Calton Hill�, full of vivid imagery like �The fanned embers of the city rustle / like the wrappers of sweets; heat / tinkering in the coal.� Small details like these are put alongside �You are turning heliotropic in this / acropolis of light, barely breaking sweat.� The ordinary and the personal are transformed into the extraordinary neatly in these poems by these turns that occur in the final stanza. Perhaps, in this way, there is a reversal of the mortality in the first sequence, creating a sense of completion for the reader.

�A Painted Life� was well worth reading in 1997 when it was first published and I think that the same can be said of today.

Christian Ward is a 28 year old Londoner who is currently finishing the final year of a degree in English Literature & Creative Writing at Roehampton University, London. He hopes to travel after his degree is finished and then commence a postgraduate degree in English Literature. He likes to read, watch films and write. He hates sport, things which are trendy and people who refuse to be themselves. His work has previously been published in Iota, Other Poetry, The Poetry Kit, Softblow, Chronogram, Lily Lit Review, Word Riot, Andwerve, Fire, Zygote in my Coffee, nthposition, Cider Press Review and Ottawa Arts Review. To read a selection of his poetry on the showcase section of this site, click here.