Norman Bissell became principal teacher of history at Braidhurst High School in Motherwell after obtaining an MA (Honours) degree in philosophy and history from the University of Glasgow. He was formerly a member of the Scottish Examination Board history panel and until recently an Area Officer of the Educational Institute of Scotland. His first poetry collection Slate, Sea and Sky features poems written in his native Glasgow and on the Isle of Luing in Argyll, where he now lives. His interest in the need for radical cultural renewal prompted him to found and lead the Open World Poetics group from 1989 until 1999 and to become director of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics from 2002 until the present.

When I first read Norman Bissell's poems, one ordinarily harassed day in Glasgow, one of his meditations on city life made me laugh so much that I wrote it on a post-it note and stuck it to my wall. His poems are full of such lines: a calm voice that I want to carry away and keep in my mind's ear. I loved the place the poems took me to. Here is the voice of a poet who is grounded in place, at home in the world. - Gerrie Fellows, author of four poetry collections. There is lovely work here, limpid and light, a careful simplicity of line, open to the voices of the city and the calm, restorative spaces of nature. - Catherine Lockerbie, Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. On his journey Norman Bissell takes a clear-eyed look at the world around us; celebrating people - and elements, rocks and minerals, birds, hills and waters as living things - with integrity, passion and compassion. His life is laid open for us with honesty, shedding light on what it is to be human in the search for what is. - Gerry Loose, Scottish Arts Council Creative Scotland Award winning poet.