The poem in Scots

Back in 1996 I was on an Arvon course at Moniack Mhor, near Beauly, with tutors Bill Herbert and Kathleen Jamie, and Kathleen set a wee exercise to write poems based in characters in old postcards she handed round the table. That's an exercise I sometimes do in my workshops these days, as it can often generate good poems.

So I started off writing the poem in English and, frankly, it was boring. But my granny's Aberdeenshire voice came into my head, and I wrote the poem again in Scots, hearing her Doric accent. Prior to this I had never written in Scots, but it just seemed so natural this time. It was accepted by Lallans magazine, so it became my first poem in Scots to be published.

It was collected in Seven Senses (Diehard Publishers, 2000).

A postcaird frae posteritie

Aits are dreebled in the wheel’s ee

as the kingle stane is ca’ed bi the haun.

The meal-tub’s big roon lid

has thon ziggie-zaggie threids

aa roon the rim.

It’s efternin, we’re here bi the hoose wa,

lukin lang an staunin stiff

sae naethin smeers the siller pents

inside the mannie’s big-leggit box o tricks.

We’re in wir Sabbath-best black-an-white claes,

me wi a mutch oan ma heid.

That tint oan the caird’s a fake,

life here’s no like that - colourfae.

Spinnle clicks, stane grinds,

pipe is sooked

tae keep it bleezin,

cardin kames clatter thegither.

We’re here tae shaw

wir wee bit wey o life,

afore it gangs ootbye,

bit ye faddle us, wi yer

“Haud still noo!”

an “Staun this wey!”

It’s aye the same,

ye canny dae yer wark

fur fowk speirin at ye.

An fit’s tae dae?

Ma laddie’s boat is beached,

an sae is he, sae are we aa,

aye turnin, ziggie-zaggie.

Copyright © Colin Will 1997, 2000