Best Scottish Poems 2023: Scots

Efter SPL filtered throu dizzens o Scots poems publish in 2023, A wis presentit wi 31 poems tae pick five fae. No an easy darg. Bit maist enjoyable. Thir wis a fine selection o wark in aw the dialecks o Scots an aw the preoccupations tae be fun in wir warld. Legacies tae fowk the poet admired or kent, ecological girns aboot hou we’re ruinin wir warld, seasonal depictions which somehou managed tae paint a picter o nature in an original wey, jist as ye thocht awthing possiblehid been awreadie scrievit. Thir wir poems wi weil structured forms, an techniques employed wir skeelie an confident. Thir wis rythms and rhymes baith internal and endline, free verse, figurative langwage galore an rich Scots vocabulaire. It’s great we hae sic variation across the pairts o the kintra an nae homogenised version tae pin awthin doon tae in poetrie. The content  o contemporarie Scots is wey past predictable. It micht be aboot the naitural warld  bit micht jist as likely be makin sherp observations oan politics, pandemics or philosophy. It’s jist brilliant tae see that the leid is in guid hauns as evidenced bi the reenge o wark bein publish in Scottish literary magazines the day.

Liz Niven

The SPL is awaiting permission to publish the fifth selected poem in Scots. It will be published as soon as permission is obtained.