Scots poem of the month - March 2009

This piece of creative writing was supplied by the Scottish Poetry Library who receive Foundation funding from the Scottish Arts Council

The Toun Graveyaird Behint the grid o railins, within the waas, The black yirth wi nae trees  and nae gress, Wi wuiden binks whaur a fyow auld fowk Sit aa efternune without sayan a wurd. The houses  ir round about and the shops ir near at haun. The  bairns play in the causeys and the trains rin Alangside the gravestanes. It’s a puir bit. Lek patches on the grey hous frunts, Clouts weet wi rain hing in the windaes. The wordin haes alreddy worn aff thae gravestanes In memorie o the deid o twa hunder year, Wha hae nae friens til forget them, the hidden deid. Bit whan the sun shines some days coman on fur June, The auld banes maun feel somethin doun there. No a leaf nor a burd. Naethin bit stane. Yirth. Is Hell lek this? Here is pain wi nae forgettan, Row and wratchedness, penitrive, wanlos cauld. Here the deid ir no left in pais For life is aye on the go amang thae graves Lek a hure speiran fur tred under the unmovan nicht. Whan the sheddas faa frae the cloudit lift And the factory smock comes doun as grey stour, Vyces come frae the door o the pub, And than a passan train cranks its lang echoes Lek a wild trumpat. It’s no the Day o Jeedgement yit, ye deid without name. Bae quaet and sleep, sleep gin ye can. Mebbe Gode’s forgettan ye tae. John Manson From Chuckies fir the Cairn (Luath, 2009)

About the poet John Manson was born on a croft close to the Pentland Firth and qualified as a primary teacher. His interests in Scottish and European literature have been lifelong.  He has written and translated into Scots and English and published several pamphlet collections.    In 1970 he co-ordinated the first MacDiarmid Penguin (with David Craig) and in 2003 The Revolutionary Art of the Future: Rediscovered Poems by Hugh MacDiarmid (with Dorian Grieve and Alan Riach). His translations from French of two prose works by Victor Serge – Carnets (1951) and Le Tropique et Le Nord (1972) – have appeared on websites. He has published over forty articles on the life and work of Scottish authors, mainly MacDiarmid, Grassic Gibbon and James Barke, and also a few articles on European novelists, Victor Serge, Anna Seghers and Ignazio Silone.

Inspiration for the Poem This is a translation into Scots of Cementerio de la ciudad by Luis Cernuda (1902 – 63) who taught at Glasgow University from 1939 to 1943.  John Manson's section of Chuckies fir the Cairn, from which it has been selected, has six original poems and six translations, all in Scots. He wished to translate this poem into Scots because the description is consistent with the Glasgow of the time with its slums and smoky atmosphere.