Seven Makar-ish Things

Bill Herbert, Dundee’s city laureate, shares his experiences and insights of the the civic role.
1
I’ve drifted into quite a serene if not exactly post-Pandemic state recently. Every morning I sense I’m supposed to feel the Universal Panic, I write out the Seven Things that have floated to the top of my To-Do List and are screaming for rescue. Seven because I read somewhere that was all the brain could take (this is wrong), with the get-out clause that five is probably enough.
So first on my list for this post are these opening paragraphs, which prove that I’m definitely doing something… And in my effort to show an effort, I’m dividing the remaining six into batches of three, because I read somewhere else threes are rhetorically satisfying.
2
Did I mention this is about being the first Dundee Makar (2013-2018) in the sense of being paid for it by the University of Dundee – and also about still being DM in the sense of continuing to do Makar-ish things, just for nothing, presumably because I’m drunk on power?
My first three things are those ongoing duties and the second are, effectively, why – an attempt at describing ‘Best Practice’ hopefully useful for anyone wanting to set up or be a Makar (or, outwith Scotland, local laureate).
These first three map onto something I think any Makar should do: be responsible for the creative writing which has already taken place and is currently or will take place in their zone. Sharing the literature of the past, supporting the writing being produced now, and encouraging creativity as it emerges, are each part of that responsibility.
3
I began with an anthology, Whaleback City, co-edited with Andy Jackson (whose idea it was), which gathered together Dundonian poetry over 500 years into five themed sections. It was the last book produced by Dundee University Press, which is one way of making a start. (You can still get it from EUP.)
Delving into literary history is vital if, as anthologists like Tom Leonard (Radical Renfrew) and Kirstie Blair and Erin Farley (Poets of the People’s Journal) argue, we are ever to hear formative voices which do not fit the dominant paradigms. Dundee is particularly subject to this, being ‘represented’ by a single figure – McGonagall – while the diverse roles played by others (Brooksbank, Lee, Geddes, Gilfillan, ‘Poute’, Wright) are overlooked.
Our current project commissions contemporary poets to produce work inspired by the radical poetry of 16th century Dundee. As our website says:
‘In the sixteenth century Dundee’s three Wedderburn brothers responded to plague, religious and political crisis – including military invasion – with plays, polemic, and, in The Gude and Godlie Ballatis, both satire and psalm.
That radical spiritual and aesthetic impulse is hereby revived, revisited, and revealed as a poetic project with, at its heart, a re-examination of the spirit in these times.
Coronavirus, corruption, and the climate crisis all seem to be upon us, and so we turn to the artistic endeavour of the Wedderburns as our model, asking only: what shall we sing?
We have commissioned six poets to respond with new verses which reconsider what we might mean today by either the Good, the Godly, or the Ballad.
From these we shall curate an event at StAnza Festival 2022, then we’ll take to the internet for a follow-up phase, to which you are hereby invited to contribute.’
– And you are (invited)!
4
In terms of the contemporary, while I was officially Makar I contributed both to festivals (we even had a Dundee one back then), and publications. These included: James Barrowman’s entry in the great Dostoevsky Wannabe series; The third Seagate anthology (it only took thirty years!); Kirsty Gunn and Gail Low’s innovative The Voyage Out).
I gave talks at the McManus Galleries, the Being Human Festival, StAnza, and the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts where, back in 2016, Jackie Kay, Asif Khan, and I first asked ‘What’s A Makar?’
I also set up a writing workshop for new and established writers, half a dozen of whom continue to meet – some of those will contribute to the StAnza event above. 
While being unofficially still-the-Makar, I set up the Dundee Renga, a monthly project for around twenty writers, now almost two years old and seeking publication. (For haiku and mair, see our website.)
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With new writing, I work with local schools, judging the annual Rotary Club competition. Back in 2014, this coincided with a stint as Scots Language Ambassador, which sent me back into my auld skail, the Grove, to establish a chart of Scots usage exploring Dundee dialect, contemporary slang, Scots English, and the rich resource of literary Scots. 
This culminated in an event at the City Chambers in June 2017 where kids who had excelled bothregionally and nationally received the fitting acknowledgement of local government. 
Which leads me on to those three principles which might form the basis of best practice for Makars or local laureates anywhere. 
6
i
The first is, exactly, acknowledgement, from the Three Estates that run such posts: Government, Education, and Arts. ‘Government’ here means local rather than national government: the Cooncil. ‘Education’ might be schools-based or – as with the auld writers-in-residence schemes – a university. ‘Arts’ is the local and national networks of festivals, media, and funding bodies. Each of these have their ain agendas and their gatekeepers. All shed their skins regularly, either through staff turnover, or newforms please, or by full-scale rebranding.
This mutability means you may find yourself in a meeting with someone who hasn’t necessarily heard of you or your track record, but they would like you to do mair community work for less money. Accountability, like form-filling, tends to be your concern, and the cycle wherein this eternally recurs might be shorter than the lifespan of writers’ groups, performance spaces, magazines, and your initiatives.
It is therefore vital that any post is securely based on a three-legged stool where each Estate has a sense of who you are, what you are aiming to do, and – not just how much it’s going to cost them – but how long it might take. Any contract you sign, then, is fundamentally a social contract.
ii
The second principle we’ve already discussed (see section 2 for our three creative contexts – the deid, the living, the still-becoming). Here we should develop the point: a Makar is, by definition, a poet, but in addition tae the poetic community there are two ithers to engage with. 
Ane is our sibling text-based forms, fiction and creative non-fiction, which, if you glance at what remains of newspapers’ arts pages, or attend non-poetry specific festivals, you might notice are often prioritised by the Three Estates. The ither is mair performative media or media that engages differently with text: theatre, film, music, dance, design, art. 
Because these are just as deserving of support, the tendency that follows from all of us having to compete for finite resources is: compartmentalisation. We dinna speak. So the second principle is reaching out not just to the public but to yir contemporaries across categories. In a nutshell: be collaborative.
iii
The final principle harks back to Makardom’s prehistory, when writers were jist (gasp!) paid tae write. Ireland maintains this tradition, but it could not survive the Great Thatcherite Moral Shift, after which creativity can neither be understood nor trusted, only monetised to offset similar failures to understand or trust local communities, education, and arts.
This principle is the cry of McGonagall’s angel: Write! Write! A Makarship must give you time to write, it should suggest how to turn that into a performance or a publication, and, ideally, fund it. Such a set-upunderstands that the writer, their community, heritage, and artistic peers are all equals. That the young develop their creativity not simply because they are funded but because there is a cultural base on which to build. That those who nurture must themselves be nurtured by cash and respect. 
Yeats mentioned that when conditions are right, ‘peace comes dropping slow’. So does creativity. Hints (see above) can be dropped much faster.
7
What could come seventh? Only a poem, pairt illustration, pairt embodiment. Here’s one made up of the last seven hokku I wrote for the Dundee Renga, each kicking off a month:
August
On Carnoustie’s links
sun burns napes while faces feel
the unGreek sea’s cool spray.

September
Cloud-watching – not 
for camels or whales, just sun,
outbursts of light.

October
Warmth no longer
familiar hesitates to touch
the walkers’ faces.

November
A small red leaf, almost 
centred on a white one: 
how oak met maple.

December
The hot soup sun, in
a cold snap cup, sinks too fast
to warm the fingers.

January
The moment I look
out the window, snow starts to fall
as though to lock the door.

February
Leafless, aa the better
tae taste grey, treetops’ tips quiver
and say: caa this dreich?