I work and research as an ethnologist, curator, and educator in the Highlands, where I have lived since I was a teenager. I started writing poetry at home in Easter Ross in December 2020. Like many folk, I found myself needing a way to examine and express so many of the uncanny experiences of that pandemic time. Since then I have been fortunate to have had numerous poems published in journals, anthologies and exhibitions, in print and online, In 2022, I was Co-winner, with my wonderful co-author, Sinéad McClure, of Dreich’s ‘Classic Chapbook Competition’, awarded for our pamphlet 'The songs I sing are sisters'. My first full collection will be published by Drunk Muse Press in early 2024. Both opportunities are gifts from the generosity of folk in this deeply democratic community of poetry that I find myself part of. 

I’m Irish in Origin, but the Scots spoken here in the northern counties of the Highlands, and in Orkney and Shetland where I have lived and worked as a researcher, fills my ears and my imagination, and I find I introduce it along with Scottish Gaelic and the Irish my parents spoke, into so many of my poems.  Recently I’ve started composing whole poems in Scots – in the variety of dialects spilled into my ears by friends. It’s a very wee and humble contribution towards continuing to live and share forward this vital, vivid language of people and place, countering the narratives of marginalisation that have so often been wrongly associated with Scotland’s languages. See https://linktr.ee/caitjomac 

SHALDER

Cáit O’Neill McCullagh

Shalder spree this ebb
dintie shank dancer
every step a loosome meeracle
yer hoodie mirk a cannie guise
fer at the breist o ye is sic licht
beckon mah baleen-bleak been tae bliss
tae the ballat o yer beaky pecks
let me be aye happit in wonder at ye
in this tear of sleet-sun-blaw
as yun moon lifts from her bed of ware
wade yer waltz wi these sook-slappit waves
flit the watter then mak yer charge
braw peerie sea laeg-paddler
mah peedie Palaearctic oster kapper

mah peedie Palaearctic oster kapper
braw peerie sea laeg-paddler
flit the watter then mak yer charge
wade yer waltz wi these sook-slappit waves
as yun moon lifts from her bed of ware
in this tear of sleet-sun-blaw
let me be aye happit in wonder at ye
tae the ballat o your beaky pecks
beckon mah baleen-bleak been tae bliss
fer at the breist o ye is sic licht
yer hoodie mirk a cannie guise
every step a loosome meeracle
dintie shank dancer

shalder spree this ebb

Published in Poetry Scotland No. 103

Anne is originally from Africa but grew up in a wee village in the North West Highlands called Ullapool. She wrote poems and songs as a youngster and has rekindled her love of writing in the last 4 years. Anne has had 2 poems published and performs poems at witchy events. Her poems are often spiritual, intense, and sad. She has never written in Scots so this was a fun challenge.

Wytch Elm O Beauly

Yon wytch elm
O Beauly
Stood fir Ower
800 year
Till her beughs
Could tak nae mair
And she fell
Bringing
Dread and Fear

The fowk
Aroon Strathglass
Gret fir
Yon auld elm
Fur
They Kent
It had
Opinit
A gateway
Tae yon faerie realm

They feart
Yon faerie fowk
Fir they
Were mischeevous cookies
They'd tak
A steek
O wytch elm
And skelp
Yon baaare
Bahookie!

George T Watt, screives aa his creative wark in Scots near eneuch. Fit wey naw? Scots is ae braw Leid. I wis brocht up in Embro but left yon toun as suin as I cuid an warkit on fairms on mony airts o Scotland. The Scots I spoke sinsyne haed accents frae Moray doun tae bonnie Gallowa an so ma screivins is the same. Ma wark haes been prentit on mony magazines but maistly in Lallans, the journal o the Scots Language Society/Scots Leis Associe. I hae also haed wark in several Anthologies, Perthshire 101, Whaleback City, Yarns an Wunds That Blaw Sae Sweit tae meintion ae few.

A Vallenelle fur Lorna’s Seiventy Birday 

Seiventeen or seiventy it’s aa the same, 
We streive alang thigether gie an tak, 
This auncient race, wir modren gemme. 

Like twae cuddies yokit tae the reign, 
We ploo wir furra, the yirth tae brak, 
Seiventeen or seiventy, it’s aa the same. 

Fur streen, fur the day, the morn’s hame, 
Whiles we chyave, whiles wir slack, 
This auncient race oor modren gemme. 

Nocht can douse this eternal flame, 
Strathspey or Reel we pas-de-basque, 
This auncient race, oor modren gemme. 

Like a chairtit course oer sauty fame, 
Throu storm or calm oor darg tae task, 
Seiventeen or seiventy, it’s aa the same. 

Nae glaikit sneist wull heise us tae mak blame, 
We’ll haud steady, we’ll aye be frack, 
This auncient race, oor modren gemme, 
Seiventeen or seiventy, it’s aa the same. 

Caroline Mackie was born and bred in Edinburgh but left to the Netherlands with her husband and 2 little ones in 1979. What was to be perhaps a short adventure, ended up with the family staying in the Netherlands 'forever'.

With family still in Scotland and not being all that far off, Caroline kept good contact with our roots. Caroline has always written.  She was always the one at the office to compose something for anyone leaving... that sort of thing. Caroline has been an official translator of Dutch to English since 2009.
Over the years Caroline wrote children's books (no luck with publishers), rhymes and short stories, more and more over the last few years - time on her hands she suggests - and not long ago began writing in the vernacular too - Caroline's version of Scots. Caroline hesitates to call her pieces 'poetry' but participating in online 'spoken word' events has encouraged Caroline, and feels her short stories seem appreciated when she posts them on Facebook.
Caroline is happy to participate with the Scots Language Centre Poetry Column and hopes she comes over well.

Advocacy

The kids the day are still aa telt ‘at’s nae wey tae be speakin!’
Thir even telt in jist they words! It’s mad!
Ah’m realisin (late, ah ken) it’s spellin thit needs tweakin,
an tellin kids thit hou they speak’s NO bad.

Wis aa keep up wi Burns at schuil. It helps, thir’s nae denying.
A word like ‘ilka’ might indeed no last.
But whit wey kin we no jist larn tae spell in decent Scots,
an larn thit hou we spik’s no frae times past!

Ah’ve loads o pals that tell me, ‘ah hiv niver spoke lik thon!’
No even realisin that they dae!
It’s the spellin an the writin that wis never taught tae us.
Been denied us all they years. So, whit d’ye say?

Teach Inglis aye, as foreign tongue. Big up the uis o Scots.
Pronunciation (whit’s the Scots fir aat?)
Wir mair than jist an accent! We’ve history tae prove it!
Ah dinnae ken it aa, but ah’ve got heart.

If bairns wis gien mair access tae mair writings o aa airts,
the chances o revival wid be grand.
Nae mair wuid even Scots hink thit their kids wis speakin ‘slang’.
A sense o pride wid then gae hand in hand.

Ah ken a dinnae dae it right masel. Ah niver larnt!
O course ah ken ah huvnae got the clowt.
But nou, ah hink the time his come! We need tae get this sorted!
‘Scots wha hae…’ an aa that. Shout it out!

Caroline Mackie, 6th January 2023
 

Lorna Callery-Sithole is an award-wining, working-class, multidisciplinary, Renfrewshire-based poet, visual artist, performer, and educator as well as being the proud mama of three beautiful Zimbabweegies. She has published three poetry collections; Pigeon with Warburtons (Speculative Books, 2019), Colour Theory (Hybrid Dreich, 2020) documenting her biracial family’s experiences of everyday racism, and Facing our Past; Shining the Light (National Trust for Scotland, 2020), examining the links between the Stirling Maxwells and enslavement in the Caribbean. She is currently working on her forth poetry collection, Billboard Apocalypse, reflecting on life in a post Covid landscape amidst the Cost of Living Crisis. She regularly performs her work at venues across Scotland and will be closing the Paisley Book Festival 2023 alongside the Renfrewshire Makar, Shaun Moore. https://www.lornacallery-sithole.com

Twitter: @LornaCallery

Insta: @lorna_callery

Metets Store

[eftir Joan Eardley’s paintin ae the same name] 

bairnsang echoes 
up the close 
doon the road

pillar boax cheeks 
couldnae keep
damp oot 

newspapers linin 
puddle jumpers’
holy soles

hopscotch weans
jump chalk-marked
breid lines

ridd heedit lassie
sookin sherbitt lemons
chasin shaddas 

skinnymalink 
troubled tae hink
stuck in the daurk

his da spendin 
pay packet
two sheets tae the wind

sheets oan windaes 
tae block oot the sun 
nettin wiz a luxury 

wan cludgie fir aw
pitch black back court
black bag bin raiders

newspapers oan the wire 
wipe yer erse 
wi yesterday’s heidlines

East End tenements
black wi stoor
lookin slant

bare flairboards 
a bad smit  
lassies wi shaved heids

fitba in the streets 
thur wiz aye a laugh
tae be hud

but
who the hell 
wiz Betty?