Parable Island

Mid Howe Broch, on the Orkney island of Rousay, was built between 200 BC and 200 AD. The poems of Pauline Stainer in her collection, Parable Island, were published in 1999. She grew up in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, attended Oxford University, lived in Essex and then for a number of years on Rousay, before moving to East Anglia. Her poetry evokes the Orcadian spareness of land and the qualities of light experienced both on- and off-shore.

Scottish Islands Explorer - looks at old and new aspects of island life