This Scottish poet and poem are analyzed in terms of balance and MacCaig's observational skills in this seven page report. Two sources are cited in the bibliography.
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his work brings up the point that he had a truly unique talent for observation of the natural world and that some of his most memorable works of poetry are
those that comment on what is too often thought of as commonplace -- frogs, birds, weather, and the countryside. Balance is always a key component in MacCaigs poetry, whether it
is the balance between light and dark, man and nature, or creatures of the world in harmony with their world of a pond, lake, or sky. Often, he presents the
issues of balance in terms of how an individual sees the world around him/her. For example, his skills of observation were also often directed toward the nature of identity and
how one individual perceives him/herself or may be perceived against the backdrop of their own world. Such is the case with MacCaigs poem "Assisi" that was published in one of
his mid-career collections of poetry titled "Surroundings" that was published in 1966. Assisi It is worth noting, as Brodie (2001) does, that "Surroundings" is the first
collection of MacCaigs poetry in which he made a switch from traditionally structured poetry began to use free verse (Internet source). The result is that he was able to craft
a poem such as "Assisi" which has a gentle yet pointed grace and, as Brodie points out, a "deceptively direct approach" (Internet source). And while the reader feels pity for
the man who happens to also be a dwarf and disgust at the tourists who are "clucking contentedly" around him, the reader is reminded of how often he or she
has been oblivious to the humanity of others who they perceive as alien from themselves and somehow not worthy of notice. Degott (1995) comments that the poems of MacCaigs "Surroundings"