A Song Among the Stones, by Kenneth Steven  

Sequence of poems inspired by the incredible 7th-century voyage of Irish hermit monks from the island of Iona to the unknown shores of Iceland is 'a joy to read'

A Song Among the Stones 
By Kenneth Steven
Wild Goose
ISBN: 978-1-80432-395-3
Reviewed by Paul Goodliff

 
 
Kenneth Stevens discovered a fresh perspective on the place of Iona at the centre of the Celtic Christian world, with Scotland to the east and Ireland to the west while listening to a lecture by an archaeologist, and this inspired the collection of poems, A Song Among the Stones.

This tiny island was not at the edge of things, as it is perceived now, but lay at the centre after St Columba landed in 563AD. Indeed, Iona was so busy that hermit monks (the papar) set off from there is find places of quiet as far as Iceland where they used stones to build a shelter and chapel, marked with a cross. That is how the Norse identified those places, and included papar in their names, (such as Papa Westray, albeit not in the Inner or Outer Hebrides, but perhaps the most readily identifiable island name incorporating this reference.)
 
Inspired by their journeys, Steven has evocatively entered into that journey in poems as light and sky-blue as the morning they set sail, "a day out of clean silk...." (V) and as rock hard in their acknowledgment of the risks of such travel as "boulders heavy as themselves" (XXIII) with which they built their beehive shelters.
 
This small book of poems is simply a joy to read, and enriched by the monochrome illustrations by Frances Law. It takes this English southerner on a journey to a land I know just a little, but which I'd love to know more — not just the journey to the far North West of these islands, but the journey of the heart, too, to meet God in wind, rain, sea-spray and cross-inscribed rock and "air filled with an evensong of birds.", (XXIII).
 
 

The Revd Dr Paul Goodliff, member of the Order for Baptist Ministry