“To find the music of the words…” #williamjtait #adaybetweentheweathers

The books of indie publisher Michael Walmer have featured here on the Ramblings a number of times; he releases a wide range of interesting fiction, poetry and non-fiction, and since his relocation to the Shetland Islands (he was previously based in Australia), his focus has turned to writings from that area. Specifically, he launched an imprint called Northus Shetland Classics, and I’ve covered a pair of fascinating titles in that series on the blog. His latest Northus release is a poetry collection – “A Day Between Weathers” by William J. Tait – and it’s a fascinating, if occasionally challenging, read! I have to confess straight away that Tait was a new name to me, which is to my detriment as he’s clearly a poet of some power. Born on the Shetland Island of Yell in 1918, he studied at Edinburgh University and taught across Scotland and England. Nationally recognised and published widely during his lifetime, “A Day Between Weathers” was originally issued in 1980 but has for some…