The might of the metre

"Poetry is the lifeblood of Scotland’s cultural identity," says Asif Khan, director at the Scottish Poetry Library (SPL). With the annual celebration of national bard Robert Burns approaching (25th January), and a new Royal Bank of Scotland five-pound note with a portrait of In the Cairngorms author Nan Shepherd—and accompanying lines by Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean on the obverse—it’s hard to argue.

Poetry features on Scotland’s public monuments too. Etched on commemorative benches at Culloden Battlefield are lines from celebrated poet Aonghas MacNeacail, and at the Battle of Bannockburn monument there are inscriptions by poet and essayist Kathleen Jamie: "‘Come all ye’, the country says,/You win me, who take me most to heart."

And, since 1984, the SPL has advocated and supported the work of Scottish and international poets. It runs schemes to bring writers to audiences in a variety of settings, including schools, public libraries and book festivals. SPL also runs poetry initiatives to engage people with dementia: Living Voices, a partnership with the Scottish Storytelling Centre, trains care home workers and librarians; it also worked on anthology Mind the Time (Nutmeg) in support of the Football Memories, an initiative that aims to help sufferers recall experiences of the beautiful game through images and memorabilia.

The Scottish Government also designated 2018 as the Year of Young People. According to Khan, performance poetry has become an increasingly popular form for engaging younger audiences and businesses have started using it to advertise to the youth market: performance poet Iona Lee recently featured in a Nationwide Building Society campaign, and spoken-word artist Kevin McLean has appeared in a Skoda advert.

Through its events programme and collections, SPL supports the Scottish Government’s protection and promotion of Scots and Scottish Gaelic languages. Notable winners at the recent Saltire Society Literary Awards included the Gaelic writers Angus Peter Campbell, Padraig MacAiodh and Iain MacPherson. Harry Giles, writing in Orcadian, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize in 2016.

The SPL has also worked with institutions such as BBC Radio Scotland and National Trust of Scotland on residencies for the commissioning of new poetry. Stuart A Paterson was appointed last September to the BBC’s four-month residency, where he was invited to engage across the station’s programmes and platforms for events such as Children in Need and Remembrance Sunday. The video to his Scots-language poem, "Here’s the Weather" has been viewed more than 220,000 times online.

Citing vast opportunities for poets on stage, online and as part of commemorative public life, Paterson says Scottish poetry is in rude health. "Big cities and smaller towns have regular performance events and book launches, there are competitions aplenty, and a flurry of emergent print and online poetry outlets. Scots-language and Gaelic poetry are making headway against and alongside the mainstream English-linguistic tide, despite comparatively little funding and support," he says. "I returned to the poetry scene in 2014, having made a bit of a mark in the 1990s—before deciding that real life had to take priority in order for me to pay the bills. Now, it feels like poetry is real life."

Paterson says the BBC Scotland post, in partnership with the SPL, has been a "brilliant media platform", enabling him to spread the poetry word on a range of themes, in English and his native Scots, to hundreds of thousands of listeners and online viewers, as well as shining a creative light on Dumfries and Galloway, the "large, usually neglected area" in south-west Scotland where he lives. "The lifeblood is strong, not just in the populous central belt but throughout the whole joyous length and spread of Scotland’s geographical, literary and linguistic landscape," he says.

This piece is part of The Bookseller's in-depth focus on Scotland. Other stories in the focus can be read here.