My straw poll into the subject of poetry on my blog set off a big debate. It became heated for some. This was never the intention. I have settled on not having a regular slot but I then received what follows from the reader who made the suggestion in the first place. I found this very powerful. It is greatly strengthened by the background information which explains the motivation for the verse.
Why poetry
Poland_Krakow_1999 n/z Czeslaw Milosz. fot. Artur Pawlowski
The poem that appeared on Tuesday, 12th March – thanks, Iain – is a translation of Meaning by the late Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz. It came to mind for other reasons, but it can be read as Milosz’s sublime reply to the question, why poetry? The need to become a ‘tireless messenger’ grew out of his exposure to two massive machines for making death and emptiness; national socialism, and Soviet communism. Milosz was a hero of the wartime Polish Resistance, remaining in Warsaw, writing and publishing clandestinely, and he witnessed the destruction of the ghetto, and was involved in the Warsaw Uprising. He went into exile in 1951, and, after being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980, his explanation for doing so was simple: it was “because I knew perfectly well that my country was becoming the province of an empire”.
“I have rejected the Stalinists new faith because the practice of lying is one of its principal commandments. The Soviet religion is only another name for lying.”
In Dedication, written in Warsaw in 1945, the poet had already set out his mission unequivocally: “What is poetry which does not save / Nations or people? / A connivance with official lies, / A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment…” Truth “is a proof of freedom” and “the sign of slavery is the lie”.
Later, in The Witness of Poetry, he asserts that true poetry is “the passionate pursuit of the Real” and in discussing how Poland’s specific cultural heritage and history is the foundation of his work, he observes:
“My corner of Europe, owing to the extraordinary and lethal events that have been occurring there, comparable only to violent earthquakes, affords a peculiar perspective. As a result, all of us who come from those parts appraise poetry slightly differently than do the majority of my audience, for we tend to view it as a witness and participant in one of mankind’s major transformations.”
In The Issa Valley, a work of fiction, Milosz writes “The living owe it to those who can no longer speak to tell their story for them”.
And in Reading the Japanese Poet Issa (1762-1826) these lines stand out:
To know and not to speak. In that way one forgets. What is pronounced strengthens itself. What is not pronounced tends to nonexistence.
In both cases, Milosz could have been thinking of Sorley MacLean, a ‘poet of memory and a poet of witness’ for one of our major transformations, the corrosive effects of which disfigure modern Scotland, while the concrete historical reality fades away with time, disperses, perishes.
From Sgreapadal | Screapadal
by Somhairle MacGill-Eain Sorley MacLean
translated from the Gaelic by the poet
Screapadal in the morning facing Applecross and the sun, Screapadal that is so beautiful, quite as beautiful as Hallaig. No words can be put on beauty, no picture, music or poem made for it.
Screapadal in May when the young bracken is but half a foot in height, hardly above the grass.
Screapadal the sheep-pen and the cattle-fold with walls to the south and west and north, and to the east the sea-sound over to the Sanctuary of Maol Rubha.
There is a half-dead memory of Maol Rubha but only the dead written names of the children, men and women whom Rainy put off the land between the north end of the Rock and the Castle built for MacSwan or for Mac Gille Chaluim for violence and refuge.
Green, red-rocked and yellow knolls to the horizon of the Carn Mor in the west above the brae coming down to green meadows, and the pine wood dark and green north right to the Castle and the light-grey rocks beyond it.
And to the south the end of Creag Mheircil hundreds of feet above the grass, towers, columns and steeples with speckled light-grey bands, limestone whiteness in the sun.
A steep brae with scree-cairns to the east down from the end of the Rock under birch, rowan and alder, and the Church of Falsehood in high water when the spring tide is at its height.
It was not its lies that betrayed the people in the time of the great pietist, Rainy, who cleared fourteen townships in the Island of the Big Men, Great Raasay of the MacLeods.
Rainy left Screapadal without people, with no houses or cattle, only sheep, but he left Screapadal beautiful; in his time he could do nothing else.
A seal would lift its head and a basking-shark its sail, but today in the sea-sound a submarine lifts its turret and its black sleek back threatening the thing that would make dross of wood, of meadows and of rocks, that would leave Screapadal without beauty just as it was left without people.
from Caoir Gheal Leumraich | White Leaping Flame: collected poems in Gaelic with English translations, edited by Christopher Whyte and Emma Dymock, published Edinburgh: Polygon, 2011
*
MacLean refers to George Rainy, a Scottish merchant and slave owner involved the sugar trade in the Caribbean and British Guiana. Already wealthy, he was awarded compensation by the British Government when it banned slavery in the Empire. Shortly after, he bought Raasay, Rona, and Fladda and cleared up to 100 families from 14 townships, including Screapadal.
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Like so much in life understanding is greatly assisted with some context and background. There will be no special slot for poetry in Yours for Scotland but likewise if relevant poetry is available that compliments a main feature it will have a place from time to time.
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Iain, please delete this if the formatting gets scrambled:
HYMN ON THE LIPS OF THE DAWN
‘No poetry after Auschwitz’
(Theodor Adorno, philosopher and music-critic)
‘What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only his eyes if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician, or a lyre at every level of his heart if he is a poet?…On the contrary, he is at the same time a political being…No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war for attack and defense against the enemy’
(Pablo Picasso, painter)
There is poetry after Auschwitz.
I say it respectfully, for I am not a Jew.
We won’t give that victory to the Nazis –
to pluck the last gold from our mouth
and traumatize our tongue with a barbed-wire gag.
What but poetry shall deliver our speech?
– each metaphor a severed wire
– each poem an utter breach.
There is painting after Dachau.
I say it respectfully, for my arm bears no blue number.
We won’t give that victory to the Nazis –
to make an endless Kristalnacht of our eyes
and brand our retinas with after-images of horror.
What but painting shall screen our vision?
– each brushstroke a beam of light
– each canvas a prism of insight.
There is music after Buchenwald.
I say it respectfully, for I have worn no yellow star.
We are fans of Sorley MacLean’s poetry, especially when we listen to his own renderings in Gaelic in that song-song voice of his, full of passion. My in-laws knew him well when he was Headmaster at Plockton. They visited him and his family on Raasay. Unfortunately, neither my husband nor I speak Gaelic fluently – or even well – although my father-in-law was born in the Gaelic-speaking Highlands and spoke it as a native. He moved down to London many years ago, and died there. We still enjoy Gaelic, both in poetry and on BBC ALBA, the flowing sounds and poetic quality held in the language itself.
Milosz’s poem was very touching and poignant, but I can’t say I’ve read Issa. One poem that haunted my late childhood onwards – and I loved poetry at school – was John Betjeman’s ‘The Cottage Hospital’. I was a teenager when I first read it, and it has haunted me ever since those far-off days. Betjeman is still one of my favourite poets, although there are several Scottish poets, of course, who have left deep impressions on me, including Sorley MacLean, Burns, Gavin Douglas and others.
Since he is too modest to mention it himself, I will. Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh is himself a published poet.
I have to hand a copy of An Aghaidh na Siorraidheachd / In the Face of Eternity.
Published by Polygon in 1991 it has pieces by eight Gaelic poets, including Fearghas. Long may he be with us. Two of the eight are here no longer: the Skye poets Aonghas MacNeacail and Catriona NicGumaraid whose death notice appeared in The Herald only a month or two back.
I despair if those on the earlier thread who seem to crave a diet of prosaic political argumentation- which can so easily elide into party hackery and political sloganeering.
One serious and very political topic often aired here is that of language. I commend to readers a work of another of the “Eight”: “Ar Cànan ‘s ar Clò” (Our Tongue and Our Tweed) by Anne Frater. It has a message to readers interested in the politics of language, Scots, as well as Gàidhlig.
Somhairle MacGill-Eain / Sorley Maclean reads his poem Ard Mhusaeum na h-Eireann / The National Museum of Ireland, a tribute to James Connolly, Irish revolutionary socialist republican (2009) (English subtitles a bit fuzzy) —
Sorry, the original date of this recording is unknown to me. 2009 must have been the date it was put on line. At the beginning of the video he says he wrote the poem “after coming back from Ireland in 1970”. Somhairle MacGill-Eain was born in 1911 and died in 1996 aged 85.
At Culloden, and during the military occupation of the glens, the British government first defeated a tribal uprising and then destroyed the society that had made it possible. The exploitation of the country during the next hundred years was within the same pattern of colonial development – new economies introduced for the greater wealth of the few, and the unproductive obstacle of a native population removed or reduced. In the beginning the men who imposed the change were of the same blood, tongue and family as the people. They used the advantages given them by the old society to profit from the new, but in the end they were gone with their clans.
The Lowlander has inherited the hills, and the tartan is a shroud.
YOURS FOR SCOTLAND 
The original Gaelic of Sorley MacLean’s SGREAPADAL is here:
http://www.sorleymaclean.org/bardachd/s/sgreapadal.htm
LikeLiked by 3 people
Iain, please delete this if the formatting gets scrambled:
HYMN ON THE LIPS OF THE DAWN
‘No poetry after Auschwitz’
(Theodor Adorno, philosopher and music-critic)
‘What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only his eyes if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician, or a lyre at every level of his heart if he is a poet?…On the contrary, he is at the same time a political being…No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war for attack and defense against the enemy’
(Pablo Picasso, painter)
There is poetry after Auschwitz.
I say it respectfully, for I am not a Jew.
We won’t give that victory to the Nazis –
to pluck the last gold from our mouth
and traumatize our tongue with a barbed-wire gag.
What but poetry shall deliver our speech?
– each metaphor a severed wire
– each poem an utter breach.
There is painting after Dachau.
I say it respectfully, for my arm bears no blue number.
We won’t give that victory to the Nazis –
to make an endless Kristalnacht of our eyes
and brand our retinas with after-images of horror.
What but painting shall screen our vision?
– each brushstroke a beam of light
– each canvas a prism of insight.
There is music after Buchenwald.
I say it respectfully, for I have worn no yellow star.
We won’t give that victory to the Nazis –
to banish every bird from the ruins of our head
and seal in our ears the undying echo of death.
What but music shall make our hearing sound?
– each vibrant string a trembling wing
– each melody a hymn on the lips of the dawn.
Gaelic version is here:
https://gobha-uisge.blogspot.com/2016/01/laoidh-ann-am-beul-la.html
LikeLiked by 5 people
We are fans of Sorley MacLean’s poetry, especially when we listen to his own renderings in Gaelic in that song-song voice of his, full of passion. My in-laws knew him well when he was Headmaster at Plockton. They visited him and his family on Raasay. Unfortunately, neither my husband nor I speak Gaelic fluently – or even well – although my father-in-law was born in the Gaelic-speaking Highlands and spoke it as a native. He moved down to London many years ago, and died there. We still enjoy Gaelic, both in poetry and on BBC ALBA, the flowing sounds and poetic quality held in the language itself.
Milosz’s poem was very touching and poignant, but I can’t say I’ve read Issa. One poem that haunted my late childhood onwards – and I loved poetry at school – was John Betjeman’s ‘The Cottage Hospital’. I was a teenager when I first read it, and it has haunted me ever since those far-off days. Betjeman is still one of my favourite poets, although there are several Scottish poets, of course, who have left deep impressions on me, including Sorley MacLean, Burns, Gavin Douglas and others.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Just superb- the poems and the idea of embracing poetry on a regular basis. Congratulations, from Laurie
>
LikeLiked by 6 people
Since he is too modest to mention it himself, I will. Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh is himself a published poet.
I have to hand a copy of An Aghaidh na Siorraidheachd / In the Face of Eternity.
Published by Polygon in 1991 it has pieces by eight Gaelic poets, including Fearghas. Long may he be with us. Two of the eight are here no longer: the Skye poets Aonghas MacNeacail and Catriona NicGumaraid whose death notice appeared in The Herald only a month or two back.
I despair if those on the earlier thread who seem to crave a diet of prosaic political argumentation- which can so easily elide into party hackery and political sloganeering.
One serious and very political topic often aired here is that of language. I commend to readers a work of another of the “Eight”: “Ar Cànan ‘s ar Clò” (Our Tongue and Our Tweed) by Anne Frater. It has a message to readers interested in the politics of language, Scots, as well as Gàidhlig.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Somhairle MacGill-Eain / Sorley Maclean reads his poem Ard Mhusaeum na h-Eireann / The National Museum of Ireland, a tribute to James Connolly, Irish revolutionary socialist republican (2009) (English subtitles a bit fuzzy) —
LikeLiked by 2 people
Sorry, the original date of this recording is unknown to me. 2009 must have been the date it was put on line. At the beginning of the video he says he wrote the poem “after coming back from Ireland in 1970”. Somhairle MacGill-Eain was born in 1911 and died in 1996 aged 85.
LikeLiked by 2 people
At Culloden, and during the military occupation of the glens, the British government first defeated a tribal uprising and then destroyed the society that had made it possible. The exploitation of the country during the next hundred years was within the same pattern of colonial development – new economies introduced for the greater wealth of the few, and the unproductive obstacle of a native population removed or reduced. In the beginning the men who imposed the change were of the same blood, tongue and family as the people. They used the advantages given them by the old society to profit from the new, but in the end they were gone with their clans.
The Lowlander has inherited the hills, and the tartan is a shroud.
John Prebble
LikeLike