Seán Haldane's previous collections of poems have been in chronological order. But there are two chronologies: the order in which poems are written, and the order of the events they describe. For example there are six poems in The Memory Tree (2015) which concern events before The Coast and Inland (1968). Haldane has written poems set in Italy while living in Canada, poems set in Canada while living in England. His longest collection so far, Always Two (2010), contains about 280 poems set in four European countries, the USA, and six Canadian provinces. Since this is a selection, not a collection, he has felt free to organise the poems in a loose chronological order of writing, and to put poems which 'belong' together - whether in place, time, or person - in separate sections. The last section includes recent poems which have been set in song cycles by the Canadian composers James Moffet (Poems of Absence) and David Jaeger (The Echo Cycle).

Seán Haldane was born in England, grew up in Northern Ireland, and has since lived between the UK and Canada, with long stints in Victoria, British Columbia, and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. He has worked in Canada as a psychologist and neuropsychologist, mainly in memory clinics, and in the UK, most recently as head of neuropsychology in the National Health Service in East London. He continues to provide psychological assessments of criminals for the UK courts. He splits his time between houses in London, England, and Caraquet, New Brunswick. Haldane is author of many books of psychology, literary studies, and poetry, and two works of crime fiction, The Devil’s Making (winner of the 2014 Arthur Ellis Award) and Cradled on the Waves, both featuring the English policeman Chad Hobbes.

Seán Haldane's profile page

The poems display... a consistent voice, which mark them out as written by Seán Haldane and no other.

David Haldane

Imaginative and always intelligent... impressive and moving.

Martin Seymour-Smith

Not unlike walking very close to a waterfall. Things sparkle and flash on all sides.

Helena Nelson

Clean, accurate and no nonsense.... [Sean's poems] make sense, which is rare these days.

Robert Graves

[Haldane] can be sure of his place among the English poets.

Robert Nye