[Terese Coe]

Congratulations, Hugh!

Much enjoyed the excerpts Gerry Cambridge published in his review of your fourth collection, Five Days, Twelve Months.

"It may be that McMillan's fondness for jokes and his keen sense of the ridiculous have led to his relative neglect in Scottish poetry; he was the most surprising, and annoying, omission from the 2nd edition of Dream State, the anthology of younger Scottish poets edited by Donny O'Rourke; in a poetic culture which tends to privilege gravitas over humour—when last did a book of verse unafraid of gaiety win a prize?—his wry take on contemporary Scottish life, crossed with a darker vision confirmed by his knowledge of History (he teaches the subject in Dumfries), remains less known than it merits. [GC]

Terese