"Hamnavoe" is a poem by the Scottish poet

George Mackay Brown George Mackay Brown (17 October 1921 – 13 April 1996) was a Scottish poet, author and dramatist with a distinctly Orcadian character. He is widely regarded as one of the great Scottish poets of the 20th century. Biography Early life and caree ...

. It is one of his best-known works and is learned off by heart by many Orkney children at school. Hamnavoe is the Viking name for the town of

Stromness Stromness (, non, Straumnes; nrn, Stromnes) is the second-most populous town in Orkney, Scotland. It is in the southwestern part of Mainland Orkney. It is a burgh with a parish around the outside with the town of Stromness as its capital. E ...

, where Brown spent most of his life. He refers to it as such in many of his works, including ''Letters from Hamnavoe'' and "Hamnavoe Market". The poem is in part a memorial to his father, John Brown, a postman, and describes the postman's round in Stromness and the people he meets on his way. Brown, who never read his work in public, chose this to be recorded as one of five poems representative of his work, now held by the Poetry Archive. In 2005, a memorial plaque to George Mackay Brown was unveiled in the

Writers' Museum The Writers’ Museum, housed in Lady Stair's House at the Lawnmarket on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, presents the lives of three of the foremost Scottish writers: Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. Run by the City of Edi ...

, on the

Royal Mile The Royal Mile () is a succession of streets forming the main thoroughfare of the Old Town of the city of Edinburgh in Scotland. The term was first used descriptively in W. M. Gilbert's ''Edinburgh in the Nineteenth Century'' (1901), des ...

, Edinburgh. It is engraved with a quotation from "Hamnavoe": ::''In the fire of images'' ::''Gladly I put my hand'' Extracts from the poem are inscribed on windows at the Stromness Ferry Terminal, and quotations can also be seen on board the ferry

MV Hamnavoe MV ''Hamnavoe'' is a car and passenger ferry, built in 2002 and operated by NorthLink Ferries across the Pentland Firth from the mainland of Scotland to the Orkney Islands. Description The ship, with a length of and beam , measures . ''Hamna ...

. In 2009, the poem was selected by the BBC as representative of George Mackay Brown and his relationship with "place", and became the subject of a documentary introduced by

Owen Sheers Owen Sheers (born 20 September 1974) is a Welsh poet, author, playwright and television presenter. He was the first writer in residence to be appointed by any national rugby union team. Early life Owen Sheers was born in Suva, Fiji in 1974, and b ...

in the series ''A Poet’s Guide to Britain''.

References

Further reading