Songs of the Grey Country
Joan Rundall came to London some time after her
mother's death in 1909, perhaps in 1910. In 1912 she married Arthur
Grigsby but when she published this, her first volume of poems, in
1916, she retained her maiden name. The theme of the poems is Scottish,
more specifically the Scottish lowlands where she grew up (in Moffat,
in Dumfries). Faith Norris claims (on what basis?) that she had the
ambition of being the first Scottish woman poet published in England in
the 20th century; she did not know that Fiona MacLeod's poems would
have had that honor if William Sharp's widow had not revealed at his
death in 1905 that he had been Fiona MacLeod. It would be interesting
to know if there are any signs that Joan Grigsby knew the Fiona MacLeod
poems. Her choice of the Lowlands as her subject might be significant
in this regard, with its implied contrast to the Highlands or the Isles
which, as Faith Norris remarks, were the more popular topic for poetry.
Faith Norris says that her mother first published poems in 1913 in "a Labour Party magazine." Songs of the Grey Country
was published in 1916 and Faith Norris says (p35) that she had heard
from a family friend of a second printing, linking this to sales in
Moffat bookstores. There are no signs of such a second printing,
however, the very few copies available through antiquarian booksellers
are of the first edition.
