SCOTS poetry never having featured prominently in my English curriculum at school or university, I feel I missed out on a national treasure trove and have only recently begun to catch up.
One of my favourite poets is Carol Ann Duffy and so I was delighted when she was appointed Britain’s poet Laureate in 2009, the first woman; the first Scot and the first LGBT person to be appointed to the position. This is one of her lovelier short works. It’s called Safe Sounds.
You like safe sounds: the dogs lapping at their bowls; the pop of a cork on a bottle of plonk as your mother cooks; the Match of the Day theme tune and Doctor Who-oo-oo.
Safe sounds: your name called, two happy syllables from the bottom to the top of the house; your daft ring tone; the low gargle of hot water in bubbles. Half asleep in the drifting boat of your bed, you like to hear the big trees sound like the sea instead.
I feel it captures the warmth and security of a happy childhood and when, from time to time I have re-read it I am moved to think of those whose childhoods had few safe sounds, and for whom the sound of their names being called elicited a feeling of foreboding and not happiness.
Duffy, it was revealed yesterday, is working on a new poem which will be an ode to the passing of gas and electricity meters which are being replaced by smart meters, and the end of estimated bills. The new work will be published in the summer and, like some of her best work as poet laureate, is sure to be wry and affectionate and will strike a chord with ordinary people throughout the United Kingdom. A bat-squeak of social commentary may also be observed.
My own attempts at poetry are always rendered clumsy and leaden by the lyricism and lightness of writers such as Duffy. This though, has never made me envious; simply more appreciative of the gifts which proper wordsmiths like she and Jackie Kay and AL Kennedy possess and deploy for the pleasure of the rest of us.
Perhaps Duffy may be tempted to write more works in tribute to other fondly remembered mementoes of time and place now gone. Here are a few suggestions accompanied by my own scrofulous lines which I’m sure she could polish with a defter touch.
Hector’s House
After Trumpton and Camberwick Green
Made us think that life was
An eternal rural English idyll,
Came Babar the elephant and his two
French aunties, sinister and shrill,
But I was, and still am
A Hector’s House man
Instant Whip
On Fridays after a week
When our Instant Whip
Was made to taste all healthy and fruity
It became butterscotch:
That really was the berries until,
On Gerard’s birthday, we got Angel Delight.
After that, Instant Whip was shite.
Smoky Pubs
It wasn’t really the bevvy
Which made my first trip to a pub
Seem glamorous and sassy,
But the old men in the corner,
Smoking Capstan, Regal and Embassy
Football Terracings
On my childhood visits to Celtic Park
There are other memories as strong as
Kenny Dalglish and George Connelly;
Getting lifted into the boys enclosure and
Asking why only Macaroon Bars were on sale
With Wrigley’s Spearmint Chewing Gum
And the curious dexterity of drunk men urinating into empty cans of McEwan’s Pale Ale
Perhaps too, Duffy and Kay, our very own new Makar, could find a way of addressing the recent and current constitutional events which have made this nation such a vibrant and dynamic place to live. I know that the occupants of these seats aren’t supposed to espouse overtly party political sentiments during their tenures but I feel there’s still plenty of scope to capture the political and cultural changes being rung in Scotland and the UK.
Already, dozens of books have been written analysing Scotland’s altered political landscape and trying to bring some order and context to the great events our nation has encountered before, during and after the independence referendum. Yet even the best of these works will not compare with those written a decade or more from now when we will be better placed to measure the long-term impact of the events of the past five years.
And I’m certainly not the first to wonder what Robert Burns would have made of it all. I’m not sure there is any compelling evidence in the poetry or letters of Burns to suggest that he was either a Unionist or a supporter of Scottish independence, but there’s no doubt that he was an internationalist and would have had strong views on the current campaign to determine our future with Europe.
So, in tribute to Burns’s Holy Willie’s Prayer this is:
Unholy Boris’s Prayer:
O God whom in London does dwell
Who doth speak English oh so well
Who made Belgium an earthly hell with Euro louts
A little land of merit nil
And Brussels sprouts
Oh Lord I always knew you were
An English man of judgment fair
You put the world into our care
Now the ba’s burst
Lend your ear to my humble prayer
Lest it get worse
Whate’er possessed that slattern Heath
Upon our sovereignty he laid a wreath
Against the Krauts we once had teeth
Now we are sparse
Like swapping Eden for Cowdenbeath
Europe my arse
This wretched four decades and more
European hordes at our door
Shaking our privilege to the core
Death in stages
No more lovely rights of seigneur
Just Living Wages
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