POEMS was published in 2015, with work by both Iain and Ken Macleod
Iain Banks is celebrated as a novelist of literary fiction and science fiction.
It is less well known that his first published work was the poem 041, in New Writing Scotland in 1983, though he also had poetry published in the University magazine while a student.
Banks took his poetry seriously and worked on it assiduously but showed it mostly to friends. Readers of Iain Banks' novels will find in the poems a further affirmation of the humane, sceptical and clear-eyed sensibility that informed all his work, shot through as ever with a dry wit that continues to disturb and delight.
Iain confessed in 2013: “The poems are a part of the desperate urge to get things that were supposed to be long-term projects out the way. I'm going to see if I can get a book of poetry published before I kick the bucket. I've got about 50 I'm proud of. I've been trying to convince Ken MacLeod that he should come in with me on this as I've always loved Ken's poetry. That, and it gives me cover. It stops the book being what it really is, which is a bit of a vanity project. If Ken comes in it will look more respectable, but I don't think he's falling for it. We'll see if it happens; I just don't know. I think my poetry's great but then I would, wouldn't I? But whether any respectable publisher will think so, that's another matter. I'll self-publish if I have to; sometimes I have no shame.”