All poets have had to convey their ideas through their writing, which is what poetry is. MacCaig's poetry has an even deeper sense of conveying what he feels. He does not belabour on about how great the world is and how great nature is. He does not use long, complicated language. He gives us a snapshot of everyday life which all speaks out a great deal about the connection between man and nature.

Most of MacCaig's poetry to do with nature has got a rhythm based on the subject of the story. In Fetching Cows, we find that the rhythm is based on the movement of the cow `The black one, last as usual, swings her head and coils a black tongue around a grass-tuft.' Starting from `swings' in that sentence, we can actually imagine the cow swinging her head by the way the sentence swings. Another...