Living on an Island Expressing the Earth is the true story of a man who grew up in the city of Glasgow and whose love of the coast took him to live on the slate Isle of Luing in Argyll. It tells of the struggle of the people of Luing to sustain and grow their community and survive Covid-19 lockdown. Norman Bissell was inspired to express the Earth creatively by the Scottish poet-thinker Kenneth White and became Director of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics in 2002. On his journeys to Ireland, to the American west and east coasts, and in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, he reveals how women like Joan Eardley, Rachel Carson, Katharine Stewart and Nan Shepherd were forerunners of geopoetics as well as men like Robert Burns, Hugh Miller and George Orwell. This fascinating story ranges widely in place and time and touches the heart.

Pre-launch Special Offer

Buy a signed and dedicated copy of Living on an Island Expressing the Earth for only £9.95 + p&p = £12.99
– and get a free Stravaig#14 journal with it.

Early Reviews

‘Norman Bissell is an accomplished and prolific writer, and long-time champion of geopoetics in Scotland. His autobiographical reflections presented here provide a frank and personal look behind the scenes of the geopoetics movement, offering sometimes challenging insights into its leading personalities.’ Prof. Mairéad Nic Craith BEd, BA, MA, PhD, MRIA, FAcSS, Professor of Public Folklore, Institute for Northern Studies, University of the Highlands and Islands

‘Norman Bissell’s Living on an Island is an extraordinary compendium of a book, a wonderfully readable autobiographical account of a poet’s accommodation with the ecology of life on a small island, a growing understanding of a community of care and concern, but also an intellectual enquiry into what has come to be termed “geopoetics”: a way of living in what the American poet Charles Olson called a “human universe” – an earth of actual value. But it’s also more than that. It’s a meticulous literary exploration of the author’s grateful relationship with the Scottish poet Kenneth White, long resident of Brittany and world-traveller, geographically and spiritually, an intellectual nomad, yet a poet grounded in glancing but profound realities, shorelines of understanding, coastal territories, tidal places. Bissell’s story of meeting, searching for, rediscovering and finding White in person, and his exposition of White’s writing, documents his own growing comprehension of an earth increasingly under threat in a climate of political encroachment. This is a quest narrative of ultimate discovery. Bissell takes us into his confidence, and locates Kenneth White, and himself, in the company of a wide range of other writers whose priorities are shared, exchanged and endorsed. It is an affirmation of a world where truths can be accurately valued.’ Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature, University of Glasgow

‘Living on an Island: Expressing the Earth is an extremely readable book that combines personal memoir with an in-depth account of the history of the geopoetics movement, seen in particular from Scotland. It’s a seminal and timely work and an informative and engaging account of this significant and growing approach to living.’ Poet and author Carol McKay

Norman Bissell was awarded a Coastal Cultures Islands Residency in 2023 by the Culture, Heritage & Arts Assembly, Argyll & Isles (CHARTS) for his Expressing an Island project. A series of free writing and arts/crafts workshops took place on the Isles of Luing, Lismore, Seil and Kerrera and a special print issue of Stravaig#14 journal has been published from the work that was produced.

His poetry collection Slate, Sea and Sky is published by Luath Press and signed and dedicated copies are also available from him here.