A Day Between Weathers

Born on the island of Yell in Shetland just at the end of the First World War, William Tait's life spanned the twentieth century.

His passion for the life of words led him to enter the teaching profession in Lerwick after student life away in Edinburgh. This passion never abated, and found its main expression in poetry.

Progressing to England and Scotland as his teaching career blossomed, his poetry began to attract attention. His first works were published in the Spectator in 1945, and over the next 35 years a steady stream of extraordinarily varied and powerful pieces graced the pages of noted journals and anthologies.

Finally, in 1980, this book, collecting together all the work which had gained him a reputation for versatility and brilliance, was published.

A Day Between Weathers sorts Tait's collected poems written between 1938 and 1978 into three thematic groupings; the first a miscellany, the second amatory, and the third poems of war. But it also exhibits another key triad of Tait's expertise - he is equally eloquent in English, Scots and Shetlandic. This fluency accords A Day Between Weathers a permanent place in the literature of Shetland, and in the wider world which it embraces.