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?

Alan Millar is a poet, writer and journalist based in Ballymoney, Co Antrim, but born and reared in the Laggan valley of East Donegal, also a traditional Ulster-Scots speaking area. In 2021, he won the SLS Hugh Macdiarmid Tassie for his poem ‘Wee Weaver Birdie’, the first

Irish person to have done so. He is also winner of the inaugural Linenhall Library Ulster-Scots writing competition, short story section, and is runner up in in the 2022 SLS’s Robert McLellan Tassie for short story. He is published in Lallans, Ullans, Linenhall Library 2021

Winners Pamphlet and Ulster-Scots Community Network publication, ‘Yarns’. In 2014, he edited 'Frae the Causey tae the Apocalypse' the poems in Ulster-Scots and English of John McKinley of Dunseverick. He has recently started a weekly Ulster-Scots column ‘Leid

Loanen’ in the paper he works for. He has appeared in two BBCNI programmes in his capacity as an Ulster-Scots poet including ‘The narra sea, the further shore’, with Scots musician Phil Cunningham. Alan is a keen hiker and open water swimmer and is starting his third Polar Bear challenge, swimming at least 3k a month, from November to March, at Portrush, NI and local lakes.

Nit Hairst o tha Anshints, Colonsay 

frae a tael o oor Mesolithic hunter-gaether ancestors  
bae Alan Millar

blakberries, connies, nits, deer, pillwort, buckies, troot, dulse, boar, cherries, clappy doos, otter, siller eel, watter hen, duck, maukin, scart, petricock, saumon, mackerel, spoots…    

Twa auler yins sit, wearied  

at wid’s laggin, fornenst tha shore 

dugoots beached in plane sicht 

a wairm autumn evenin 

doucely fleppin at tha midgies 

as tha sun’s bricht draps 

abakka trees on tha saft lift 

ahint them, tha peck, peckin 

o whinstane chackin at wid 

chiels clishmaclaverin 

snoiterin forbye 

fur a wean is sleepin nearerhan

moo fu apen, wee finngers aa rid 

sair frae tha gaetherin

anent her, tha gye roon pit 

shalla, san lined, big as birkies-bae-twa 

pit heid tae toe athort it 

fur twa days noo tha nits 

hae tumult in frae their creels 

collectit bae tha wee femily 

waek yins foragin inbye 

tha stranger dannerin tha airts   

bonnie broon thoosans noo platted aaf 

tae jist aneath tha gress 

smellin o hairst sappie

yerbivore greens, deep guid 

Yao’s boonty 

tae tha lass stid grimin tha san ower    

tha mither, yer mammy’s namesake 

on her knees

smuithin aff flush tae tha groon

wi eydent hans 

sens tha dochter bak tae tha stran fur mair  

noo sat bidin 

keekin at her granwean, streichin   

a lown spell, a quateness faals 

wan she jalouses maun swallie this isle 

efter they’re awa  

her unco sperin cut shoort  

bae a sweet burd sang     

itsell loost  

as her nephews’ pap oota tha busses   

traelin hazel sticks fur tha wid bing 

aye groughin  

in tha late mirk o dailygaun 

ilka boadie gaethers 

aroon tha bonfire, 

cannie bigged ower tha hairst 

aal een on tha younglin heid yin 

hunkered wi flints, he lichts tha fog tinner 

blaws, tae flames kittle his finngers  

quick sets it unner tha boney    

naw lang efter, tha clan beed doon 

furfoughen, bit fur wan aule sentinel 

wha kens his darg   

taipin on sticks 

skailin tha haet greeshoch fairly   

fur their rich hairst maun kythe  

maun bae roastit naw burnt

kerries his gree lik a heid yin 

o a blast furnace, smeltin 

gustie baked flora, niver gaes aff 

kept beilded weel, frae rane an tide 

meat though ony scantiness  

on their gye road farrit.