With some 800 islands to cover, there’s no shortage of inspirational material for Stewart Conn’s Other Worlds, a new anthology of Scottish Island Poems (Polygon, £12.99 paperback). It is a satisfyingly lively and diverse compilation, with contributors ranging from Hugh MacDiarmid and Les Murray to Norman MacCaig and Liz Lochhead, among many other familiar names. Here are two samples. In the first, Kenneth Steven takes the Iona Ferry; in the second, Diana Hendry is at home Without Trees on Shetland.

IONA FERRY

It’s the smell I remember –

The dizziness of diesel, tarry rope, wood sheened like toffee.

The sea was waving in the wind, a dancing –

I wanted it to be rough and yet I didn’t.

My mother and I snugged under the awning,

To a dark rocking. We were as low as the waves,

All of us packed in tight like bales of wool.

The engine roared alive, its tremor

Juddered through the wood and thrilled me, beat my heart.

The shore began fading behind the white curl of our hum.

Fourteen days lay barefoot on the island –

Still asleep, their eyes all shut.

And yet I knew them all already,

Felt them in my pocket like polished stones –

Their orchids, their hurt-white sand, their larksong.

WITHOUT TREES ON SHETLAND

Only an artist

uncertain of his lines

would add trees to this landscape

such finery and frippery,

distracting the eye

from the true shape of things.

Here, where they’ve been rubbed out, everything’s clear.

A clean sweep, no frills,

no nonsense. No trees

and no doubt at all

your Maker

can get a better view of you.