Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • Poetry
    • Poets
    • Poems
    • Makar – National Poet
      • Our Waking Breath: A Poem-letter from Scotland to Ukraine
      • A Woman’s A Woman
      • The story of the Makar – National Poet of Scotland
    • Best Scottish Poems
    • Spiorad an Àite
      Spirit of Place
    • The Trysting Thorns
    • Poetry Ambassadors
      Tosgairean na Bàrdachd
      • Poetry Commissions: Walter Scott 250
        Coimiseanan Bàrdachd: Walter Scott 250
      • Poetry Ambassadors 2021
    • Poetry Ambassadors 2020
    • Posters
    • Podcasts
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • SQA set texts
    • Learning resources
    • Designing sensory poetry activities
    • Children’s poems in Scots
    • National Poetry Day archive
    • New to poetry?
    • Advice for poets
  • Events
    • What’s On
    • Meeting rooms and venue hire
    • Exhibitions
  • Shop
    • Poetry Highlights
    • Entropie Books
    • Stichill Marigold Press
    • Poems for Doctors, Nurses & Teachers
    • Scottish Poetry
    • Poetry Pamphlet Cards
    • Help
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Jobs
    • Company Papers & Policies
    • Our projects
    • Our building
    • FAQs
    • Find us
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poetry
  • >
  • Stuart A. Paterson
  • >
  • Breenge
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

Breenge

Stuart A. Paterson

This morning, as the 372 shoogled
through Carsethorn, hirpled
wabbit past the kirk and through
dreich smirr hoyed down from
droukit braes above, I saw
a coupit yowe in a kelpit lea,
beelin-eened cuddies lean over a hazelrawed
dyke to lour at me, a fug of speugs
loup out of nowhere on
a whigmaleerie of peerie wings,
imagined I heard a lintie sing beyond
the engine’s pechin skreigh,
thought waukrife of a wattergaw,
time prismed to language’s muckle flaws
& need for a never-ending breenge,
thirlt to the whyles forfochen
adventure of it all.


Stuart A. Paterson

From Aye (Tarland: Tapsalteerie Press, 2016). Reproduced by permission of the author.

Tags:

Best Scottish Poems 2016 buses everyday life journeys Scots sheep

About this poem

This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2016. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor in 2016 was Catherine Lockerbie.

Editor’s comment:

A fantastic collection of energetic, feisty poems in Scots, Aye brims with the raw, rich force of a language.  There are anthems and glass-raising salutes and many a nod to Hugh MacDiarmid. This one, ‘Breenge’, takes us on a bus journey through a landscape rendered anew by the words used to describe it, a brave rallying call to linguistic action. It shows the full potential of that evocative, colourful vocabulary – it would be a comparatively pallid thing in English.

Author’s note:

Although the poem’s in a Scots collection, it’s not a poem in Scots but a poem about it. Almost all nouns, verbs & adjectives are in Scots, the grammar, prepositions & other gubbins in English. I wrote it on my phone while taking my regular journey to Dumfries, along the Solway coast on the 372A Houston’s bus, driven that morning by Robert Louis Stevenson, or Rab. It’s a beautiful journey & I started thinking about how much of what I see, hear & feel I express internally in Scots. Setting it in an English frame lent, I felt, an added power & importance to both the difference & beauty of the language. Even the title’s ambiguous. A breenge can be both a forceful & intrusive thing (a shove) or a thing of enjoyment (a trip away, a gallivant). I hope that both meanings, verb & noun, apply to the way Scots meanders on its native way through this poem. You don’t have to know Scots to read it, preferably aloud, which makes it in itself a wee adventure. A breenge.

Listen

Share this
Facebook
Twitter
Email

Learn more

Best Scottish Poems 2016

edited by Catherine Lockerbie
Find out more

Stuart A. Patersonb.1966

Stuart A. Paterson is a Scottish poet and performer, who was appointed the Scots Language Centre's Virtual Poet in Residence 2015-2016.
More about Stuart A. Paterson

Online Shop

Browse our range of poetry books, cards and gifts in our online shop.
Shop now
  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2022.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
Scottish Poetry Library