Best Scottish Poems 2021: Scots
edited by Sheena Blackhall
Wylins
Tae futtle doon echt poems tae twa, wyled tae gyang ontae the Scottish Poetry Library online Anthology is a hard darg, wi ilkie poem in its ain wye haein skeelieness an virr. Sae, it’s anely the joodge’s likin that makks the differ.
Palma McKeown’s Signs gaed the reader a strang look at daith, an myndin on her faither, wi aa his fauts, still deeply lued.
William Bonar’s The Muckin o Robby’s Byre is a braw example o the Nor East cornkister tradeetion…rambunctious, wi a rare command o Scots in the comic style, fair kneipin on nae drawin braith. It could staun wi the maist famous cornkisters, sic as McGinty’s Meal an Ale by George Bruce Thomson, MacFarlane o the Sprotts o Burnieboosie by George Bruce Thomson, A Pair o Nicky Tams by G. S. Morris.
Christine de Luca’s Veeve is weel kent as a foremaist makar an richtly sae. Veeve, gin ye dinna ken, means picturs, images that are life-like, It’s a wee gem o a poem. It his a hauntin image o shakkin a sna globe, an watchin the fite skirps sattle.
But, nose tae gless, a caald fumble
A eence apön a time sense, blurry an frostit;
A inner wirld o nae paes, an half-haertit.
Mindin on flukkra-globes we’d shack,
Waitin fur da snaa ta settle back,
Shane Johnstone gies us a poem frae the sea: Skipper a weel observed screivin.
Yir arse bone just
In thi boat’s Baltic bench
That sulked minus wan
Intae raw tin lungs…
A cutty poem wi smeddum, is Ashley Douglas’s Double–Expresso Luve her requirements in a bidie-in, whilst Donald Adamson‘s In their Hauns is thochtfu, wi hope that ongaun generations’ll makk a better job o managing the eirde than we hae dane.
An noo tae the twa I hae wyled frae the lave: Maxine Rose Munro’s A Fine Day and Lynn Valentine’s Thi Loss o thi Westhaven.
Read the poems
- Thi loss o thi Westhaven
by Lynn Valentine - A fine day
by Maxine Rose Munro