Поэтический конкурс McCash продолжает традиции Хью МакДармида, исследуя темы любви и шотландского языка

HUGH MacDiarmid’s poem Gairmscoile – the word means School for Poets – begins like this: Aulder than mammoth or than mastodon Deep i’ the herts o’ a’ men lurk scaut-heid Skrymmorie monsters few daur look upon. Brides sometimes catch their wild een, scansin’ reid, Beekin’ abune the herts they thocht to lo’e And horror-stricken ken that i’ themselves A like beast stan’s, and lookin’ love thro’ and thro’ Meets the reid een wi’ een like seevun hells. ...Nearer the twa beasts draw, and, couplin’, brak The bubbles o’ twa sauls and the haill warld gangs black. It’s a shocking recognition of the creatural, or even bestial, reality, the bodily fact of mortal life that inhabits men and women, and that sometimes breaks through the civilised veneer, the show of politeness society insists that we try to maintain. With characteristic forthright assertion, MacDiarmid gives us a sense of the animal lust that can erupt in the act of so-called making love, when two bodies come together in violent proximity, intertwining, one entering the other. And, he says, this is a fact of physical being that is older than prehistoric mammals or monsters, an almost inhuman register of passion. He goes on: Yet wha has heard the beasts’ wild matin’-call To ither music syne can gi’e nae ear. The nameless lo’enotes haud him in a thrall. Forgot are guid and ill, and joy and fear. ...My bluid sall thraw a dark hood owre my een And I sall venture deep into the hills Whaur, scaddows on the skyline, can be seen – Twinin’ the sun’s brent broo wi’ plaited horns As gin they crooned it wi’ a croon o’ thorns – The beasts in wha’s wild cries a’ Scotland’s destiny thrills. Again, characteristically, he binds this sense of extreme, passionate commitment to the purpose of Scotland: oh, politicians, parliamentarians, inhabitants of Holyrood, would that we could see such passion, even intermittently! The opening part of the poem concludes: The lo’es o’ single herts are strays; but there The herds that draw the generations are, And whasae hears them roarin’, evermair Is yin wi’ a’ that gangs to mak’ or mar The spirit o’ the race, and leads it still Whither it can be led, ’yont a’ desire and will. In other words, this force is what makes creation possible, regeneration, renaissance, conception, new birth. And, what’s so unusual in this poem is that MacDiarmid locates this drive and energy in language itself, and that language here is Scots. Later in the same poem, MacDiarmid reflects on the antiquity of the Scots language: Mony’s the auld hauf-human cry I ken Fa’s like a revelation on the herts o’ men As tho’ the graves were split and the first man Grippit the latest wi’ a freendly han’ ...And there’s forgotten shibboleths o’ the Scots Ha’e keys to senses lockit to us yet – Coorse words that shamble thro’ oor minds like stots, Syne turn on’s muckle een wi’ doonsin’ emerauds lit. Ever since I first read that, the image of a prehistoric man leaning through the millennia to shake hands with a contemporary person in a friendly, comradely way, has given me a smile, and then that closing image of a lumbering brutish animal, shambling in its movement, heavily lurching forward but then suddenly turning to stare at you with eyes like dancing emeralds, has given me that shock of delight only fine poetry can manage. The analogy he draws is with the baby Jesus in the cradle in the manger, when “the salt een o’ the kine/ Lichted Christ’s craidle wi’ their canny shine.” Hee-Haw! Click-Clack! And Cock-a-doodle-doo! – Wull Gabriel in Esperanto cry Or a’ the warld’s undeemis jargons try? It’s soon’, no, sense, that faddoms the herts o’ men, And by my sangs the rouch auld Scots I ken E’en herts that ha’e nae Scots ’ll dirl richt thro’ As nocht else could – for here’s a language rings Wi’ datchie sesames, and names for nameless things. Isn’t that glorious! Sound, the music of language, fathoms our depths, touches our deepest parts, in ways that logical, Latinate thinking never does, could never do. This reminds me too of those lines in A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926): I’ll ha’e nae hauf-way hoose, but aye be whaur Extremes meet – it’s the only way I ken To dodge the curst conceit o’ bein’ richt That damns the vast majority o’ men. I’ll bury nae heid like an ostrich’s, Nor yet believe my een and naething else. My senses may advise me, but I’ll be Mysel’ nae maitter what they tell’s … I ha’e nae doot some foreign philosopher Has wrocht a system oot to justify A’ this: but I’m a Scot wha blin’ly follows Auld Scottish instincts, and I winna try. For I’ve nae faith in ocht I can explain, And stert whaur the philosophers leave aff, Content to glimpse its loops I dinna ettle To land the sea serpent’s sel’ wi’ ony gaff. Like staundin’ water in a pocket o’ Impervious clay I pray I’ll never be, Cut aff and self-sufficient, but let reenge Heichts o’ the lift and benmaist deeps o’ sea. That’s the range he promises: as high as the sky, as low as the depths of the ocean, never so alone as to be stand-offish and disconnected from humanity, perpetually open to experience, with a mind as voracious and encompassing as anything can be. The first lines of the extract quoted there are chiselled on the poet’s headstone, in the cemetery on the hill above Langholm, but it’s the later two lines in the quotation that I treasure above all: “I’ve nae faith in ocht I can explain, / And stert whaur the philosophers leave aff.” That in itself is praise of the Scots language. How can one “explain” the way that “sound” affects us more profoundly than “sense”? There’s something inexplicable in it, and what you can’t explain is magic. Or reverse that: magic is what you can’t explain. So when MacDiarmid turns to scorn the minor versifiers of his own time, it’s to put them to one side and place centre stage the vitality of Scots itself: Ablachs, and scrats, and dorbels o’ a’ kinds Aye’d drob me wi’ their puir eel-droonin’ minds, Wee drochlin’ craturs druding their bit thochts The dorty bodies! Feech! Nae Sassunuch drings ’ll daunton me. – Tak’ ye sic things for poets? Cock-lairds and drotes depert Parnassus noo. A’e flash o’ wit the lot to drodlich dings. Rae, Martin, Sutherland – the dowless crew, I’ll twine the dow’d sheaves o’ their toom-ear’d corn, Bind them wi’ pity and dally them wi’ scorn. Lang ha’e they posed as men o’ letters here, Dounhaddin’ the Doric and keepin’t i’ the draiks, Drivellin’ and druntin’, wi’ mony a datchie sneer ...But soon we’ll end the haill eggtaggle, fegs! ...The auld volcanoes rummle ’neath their feet, And a’ their shoddy lives ’ll soon be drush, Danders o’ Hell! They feel th’ unwelcome heat, The deltit craturs, and their sauls are slush … Those magnificent verses might apply to any number of “doonhauders o’ the Doric” of today, all those fools and hostiles still opposed to what is so patently the self-evident truth of the validity and value of the language we call Scots. Equally with Gaelic, the language warrants the governmental recognition the Scotland Languages Bill endorses, but so much more remains to be done for its implementation. MacDiarmid concludes his poem with a promise for the future: “For we ha’e faith in Scotland’s hidden poo’ers, / The present’s theirs, but a’ the past and future’s oors.” And it’s in that spirit that the McCash poetry competition has been running. We sampled a few of the prizewinning entries last week. Here are a few more. Regarding his poem, Donald Adamson noted: “At primary school in Dumfries in the 1950s, the gender divisions were strict. “There was a playground for girls and another for boys, and no mixing at all. The girls seemed to have more fun, but if you were a boy, the worst possible thing was to be called a ‘lassie boy’. “The dilemmas surrounding Lowpin wi Lassies still resonate in Scotland, and they seemed to offer a theme for the McCash Competition. Gender barriers have broken down and I think that’s hugely positive. Yet celebration of the change has got bogged down in harsh words and absolutes. “There are valid concerns on both sides, but I hope that with goodwill and pragmatism, it will become acceptable for people to lowp as laddies or lassies, whatever their birth characteristics.” Here’s the poem: Lowpin wi Lassies We aye passed throu their playgrun on the wey tae oors, didnae daur stop or keek tae the side whaur the lassies wis lowpin. – What kind of stockings do you wear? Nylon, silk, rayon – Listenin wisnae allooed. There wis nae mindin or repeatin whit we hird. – I can do the birley-oh And I can do the splits – Juist a few steps mair an we wis sauf amang the Cops an Robbers an the Cowboys and Indians an the shootin souns pch – pch – pch – pch an – whae kens the day? – a proper fecht. But aye wi sing-sang vyces at oor backs – they lassies, oh, the fun they hud! Smaw wunner, as we ken, thir’s boys that as the years gae by step up tae the rope an whan it’s cawed trip ower themsels – yit ayewis haud the auld rhymes in their heids an wish they’d daured tae lowp wi the lassies. Ithers there are, tho, that stey the coorse, chynge frae hou they stertot oot an declare, “A’m yin o thaim”. For suir they arenae blate. Is yon no a cause tae celebrate? Deborah Leslie commented on her prizewinning poem: “I take bookings as an after-dinner speaker and have spoken at many Burns Suppers. The Lassie Replies was inspired by encounters with those who celebrate the Scots tongue at Burns events but look down on it in their everyday lives. “It’s wonderful to be commended in the highly respected McCash Poetry Prize celebrating our Scots language.” The Lassie Replies The poet’s feast – here’s me, ritual rinnin order placed, revving up te brave regale the January fans o Rabbie. Ah sit in aakward finery, an honoured guest, at a tap table set te test. A kilted high-heidyin tilts in on fusky breath, hauf-lachs an sweels aroon ma unfiltered wirds wi novelty (on his tongue, mair refined), declares me a delichtfu find… a wirkin-class conundrum, duncin atween warlds leanin farrer, the weel-worn spiel … he wis brocht up te spik proper, you know how it is, the wirds skelpit oot afore uncultured vernacular daured haud him back in life. Glaisses clinkan, Ah rise te claim ma ain prood leid – that vyce he shuns syne glorifies. He ups an doons wi dram on high, haggis stappit, Tam o’ Shantered a faithless luver o the Bard safe deid. And finally, this week, the poet laureate of Glasgow Jim Carruth said about his poem: “The annual McCash poetry competition remains one of the constants in the Scottish literary awards landscape and with its focus on all variations of the Scots language it holds a vital place in the promotion of Scots, challengingly inspiring and unique. “My poem, Backs tae the Dance, unsurprisingly builds on my experiences of young farmers’ dances over the years. There were many farmers who never left their place at the bar. “This poem however explores the often unspoken, where the depth of a friendship and attraction between two young men is not appreciated and acted on. Scots was an ideal medium to explore this story of unrequited love.” Backs tae the Dance ‘like ploomen in a pub they want to hear o’ naething but their ain foul hubbub’ – Hugh MacDiarmid ‘We two boys together clinging’ – Walt Whitman Twa young fermers leanin on the bar, tweel shouder tae tweel shouder. Slaurie deep in crack, thair backs are tae the dance. Flytin agin the wanchancy whether wather, ingine or beast, thair dissection o wirkin days haes the gush o a burstit gutter. Lik twin caufs heids thegither suppin frae the wan pail, ilka ane taks a shot noddin tae punctuate the ither’s wirds. Thare’s anely common grund here tho naither halely unnerstaunds yon subconscious cattle prods the way they’d suss a bullin stirk sae hiv nae chairt tae navigate this nicht whaur pints suin wizzen tae whiskies. Hinderly, thay’ll turn tae an abandont haw wi its scaitert chaff o shattert gless an hauf-empire bottle dregs that are nivir wirth the gleanin. The poets here are in good company with the other prize winners and with MacDiarmid, so I’ll give the last word to him in a poem which effectively sums the matter up for all of us: The Secret Voice My voice is like a bairn – O would that it could tell The hauf that’s in my brain And body – to mysel! For language is a young thing But Flesh is auld – and mind; And words for what we are, Or ken, are ill to find. And fegs! for Life and Lear It’s hard to thole to hear The silly havers thocht At best can mak’ o’ ocht. Yet whiles through words can brak’ A music that can gliff Body and brain as if Their benmaist secrets spak’.