Poetry from Scotland 2: Liz Lochhead [by Robyn Marsack]

Kidspoem /Bairnsong 

it wis January
and a gey dreich day
the first day Ah went to the school
so my Mum happed me up in ma
good navy-blue napp coat wi the rid tartan hood
birled a scarf aroon ma neck
pu'ed oan ma pixie and my pawkies
it wis that bitter
said noo ye'll no starve
gie'd me a wee kiss and a kid-oan skelp oan the bum
and sent me aff across the playground
tae the place Ah'd learn to say
it was January
and a really dismal day
the first day I went to school
so my mother wrapped me up in my
best navy-blue top coat with the red tartan hood
twirled a scarf around my neck
pulled on my bobble-hat and mittens
it was so bitterly cold
said now you won't freeze to death
gave me  little kiss and a pretend slap on the bottom
and sent me off across the playground
to the place I'd learn to forget to say
it wis January
and a gey dreich day
the first day Ah went to the school
so my Mum happed me up in ma
good navy-blue napp coat wi the rid tartan hood
birled a scarf aroon ma neck
pu'ed oan ma pixie and my pawkies
it wis that bitter.

Oh saying it was one thing
but when it came to writing it
in black and white
the way it had to be said
was as if you were posh, grown-up, male, English and dead.

from A Choosing: selected poems (Edinburgh: Polygon, 2011)

Liz Lochhead, who lives in Glasgow, is the current Scots Makar (poet laureate) and a gifted playwright, her best-known play being Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off. That title suggests the way she challenges accepted power relationships, whether in history, art, or domestic life: with verve, curiosity and defiance. Success for a Scot in British society after the Act of Union in 1707 often entailed losing all trace of  Scots vocabulary and grammar, but  this is not a story particular to Scotland: Lochhead's poem touches all those accustomed to speaking one language at home and another in society.

She published her first collection in 1972, in a very male-dominated literary environment, and went on to write dark re-tellings of myths and fairy tales, as well as humorous and touching performance monologues.  As Carol Ann Duffy has written, Lochhead’s  poetic voice  is ‘a warm broth of quirky rhythms, streetwise speech patterns, showbiz pizzaz, tender lyricism and Scots [which] liberated a generation of women writers’. 

 

Hear Liz Lochhead reading and interviewed in this Scottish Poetry Library podcast:

http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/connect/podcast/liz-lochhead-40th-anniversary-memo-spring

And find out more here:

http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poets/liz-lochhead

Comments

[LaWanda Walters]

What a brilliant poem--brilliant in all senses of the word (beautiful, but also so full of light and spirit)--thank you!

[Robyn Marsack]

So pleased you like it, LaWanda - I was slightly anxious about presenting a poem in Scots but did think it had universal appeal, and your comment seems to bear that out. Robyn