Mountain Retreats, Iain Maloney’s third poetry collection, consists of two poetic cycles in the tradition of the great climbing poets, Gary Snyder and Kenneth Rexroth. Where the sky begins ranges over peaks and valleys exploring the connections between nature and health as the narrative voice retreats into the Japanese Alps while facing an unnamed illness. All of this has happened before uses the mechanisms of the rock cycle – weathering and erosion – to come to terms with mortality. Drawing on an array of imagery and references, these poems strike out in new directions before looping back on themselves, rising and falling like mountain trails, all the while seeking clarity above the trees, where the sky begins.
I think this might be my favourite book Maloney has written ever. The number of times I found I was holding my breath whilst reading this ; I love its honesty and the feeling of guidance that streams through it. Tactile, elemental and pin-sharp poetry that strips both body and landscape back to the very bones. Maloney folds time and presses it into your palm, whispering go, breathe, be. – Larissa Reid
As a writer he is bold, humorous and current. – The Japan Society
Deft [and] rich… [It] combines a wise scepticism with a knowing range of reference from his home and adopted cultures: Maloney’s non-fiction prose is brilliant at capturing brief encounters, and here he shows he can do it in poetry with an effortless economy of phrase and delightful rhythm. – Glasgow Review of Books
The back cover note compares these mountain poems to the climbing poems of Gary Snyder and Kenneth Rexroth, and there’s a point to the comparison. However, without wishing to push national distinctions too far, I feel there’s a clear difference between the Scottish Maloney and his American predecessors. While they tend towards portraying the heroic individual against a mountain backdrop, the healing that Maloney’s narrator experiences is as much due to companionship as to altitude. – Elliptical Movements
“Mischievous wit … controlled and elemental poetry… these poems ring with mono-no-aware (the care or empathy for all things), and the wistful nature of being human is poignantly and lightly expressed.” The Bottle Imp
Iain Maloney 