The Callum Macdonald Award

Congratulations to Hugh McMillan and his publisher Hugh Bryden on winning the Award last night for his pamphlet - Postcards From the Hedge.

Jayne Wilding and I were joint runners-up for Sky blue notebook from the Pyrenees, with the other runner up being Mary Johnston for A Ring O Sangs.

It was a splendid evening, with over 70 gathered in the old Board Room of the National Library of Scotland, and I'm still a bit shattered this morning.

It's the first time I've shared an award for my publishing efforts, but the truth is that the pamphlet design was a joint effort between Jayne and I. She had such good ideas on layout and design, and it was a stimulating time working on it. Definitely worth all the effort.

Other publishing news is that Mary Johnston's Fa did she think she is?, and David Purdie's The Godothin, are both finalised and at the printers, with launches being planned for late June.

I'm off to the Gardening Scotland show this morning, and I may fall asleep while DunbarJane's driving.

Poetry on the Beeb

A few months ago I was asked to be a member of the panel judging the North of Scotland heat of the BBC's 'Off By Heart' competition. We picked a young girl called Thalia who, in our judgment, had best understood, memorised and performed the poem she'd chosen from the list. Her interpretation was animated, informed and enjoyable, and she was our unanimous choice. The following week she went on to the Scottish final, in which I was not involved, and which she won, I'm glad to say.

Last Friday she was in the televised final of the competition, and although she didn't win it, it was good to see her there, not in the least troubled by having to perform in front of an audience at the Sheldonian theatre in Oxford, with Jeremy Paxman presenting the programme. Whatever she does in future, I wish her well. I was very much impressed by the winner, originally from Iran. Maybe too many hand gestures for my taste, but his voice was beautifully controlled and modulated. He wanted to be an actor, but if he couldn't be that, he'd be a musician, and if he couldn't be that, he'd be a philosopher.

The competition involved primary schools selecting entries from their pupils, so I guess there must have been a huge number of children learning poetry by heart, and performing it to their peers. I'm sure it increased the profile of poetry reading in schools. My mother, who will be 90 this year, tells me she remembers learning poetry by heart and reciting it in class, as a 7-year old. A potent and empowering experience in her case.

It was interesting to note how many of the finalists had chosen Roald Dahl's Little Red Hiding Hood as their second poem.

On Saturday I watched Jeremy Paxman's programme about Wilfred Owen, his (and my) favourite poet of the First World War. Having not long returned from my own trip to the Somme, I found it poignant and moving. Owen wrote, "My subject is war, and the pity of war. The pity is in the poetry." It is; it assuredly is.

Anselm Hollo

I strongly support Salt Publishing and its current struggle to stay afloat (see the Just One Book campaign in blogs and elsewhere). One unexpected consequence for me of the appeal has been finding a 'Selected' by Anselm Hollo in the Salt list. I ordered it immediately, along with two other Salt titles, and I'm looking forward to reading it (and the others of course).

I first read Hollo's poetry in the pages of Evergreen Review and Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. back in the 1960's. His poetry at that time was fresh, original, sometimes humorous in an off-beat way, and clearly a product of a European outlook. He's from Finland originally, but made his home in America in the late 1960's. He now lives in Boulder, Colorado. In the 60s he was a poet of the underground movement (not the London subway system), and he's represented in the Children of Albion anthology Michael Horowitz put together. If memory serves me, he took part in the Albert Hall reading with Ginsberg, Pete Brown, Adrian Mitchell et al, though I can't remember if he's in the film.

P.O.T.H. was edited by Ian Hamilton Finlay, and was one of the formative influences on my poetry reading. It was resolutely internationalist, at a time when Scottish writing seemed to me to have too narrow a focus. It was here that I first encountered Cid Corman, Lorine Niedecker, and the young Edwin Morgan.

Pamphlet publishing

Last week the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award shortlist was announced, and today the Michael Marks shortlist was announced, both for poetry and for pamphlet publishers.

In case anyone missed it, here's the CMMA shortlist:

The Flood, by Alistair McDonald, published in Dunoon by Classical Head Press
Sky Blue Notebook from the Pyrenees by Jayne Wilding, published in Dunbar by Calder Wood Press.
Slaughtering Beetroot, by Angela McSeveney, published in Edinburgh by Mariscat Press
Hinkum Clinkum, by Sheena Blackhall, published in Aberdeen by Malfranteaux Concepts.
Hope/Truth by Priscilla Chueng-Nainby, published in Edinburgh by Lemongrass Hut.
Ring O’Sangs by Mary Johnston, published in Bonnyrigg by Poetry Monthly.
Postcards from the Hedge by Hugh McMillan, published in Dumfries by Roncadora Press

and the Michael Marks lists:

Poetry
Bone Song by Polly Atkin (Aussteiger Publications)
The Shortest Days by Elizabeth Burns (Galdragon Press)
That Water Speaks in Tongues by Siobhán Campbell (Templar Poetry)
Milk by Sarah Jackson (Pighog)
Whichever Music by Kate Potts (tall-lighthouse)
quot by seekers of lice (self-published)

And Publishers:
HappenStance Press
Oystercatcher Press
tall-lighthouse
Templar Poetry

I'm impressed by both lists (notwithstanding my personal interest in the CMMA outcome, which features two Calder Wood Press authors and several friends). Taken together, however, they indicate to me that pamphlet publication is an increasingly strong vehicle for poetry publishing. More than that, as pressures (financial and submission volumes) on poetry magazines rises, pamphlet publication is becoming more important as a break-through vehicle for emerging poets. I picked up several tall-lighthouse pamphlets at the last StAnza, and I was much impressed by them. They're an ideal sampler, and the best format for publishing short poem sequences.

Also, they mostly don't require public subsidy. Costs are relatively small, and the financial risk to publishers is mostly bearable. Plus, and in my case it's a big plus, each one is a creative and enjoyable challenge to the publisher. Let's have more.

Burns

One of the Somme memorials - we saw so many that I've forgotten which one - had a quote from Robert Burns on it. It was one I didn't recognise, and I forgot to take notes ("Always take notes," I tell workshops). So I've had a bother tracking it down. It was, I thought, not characteristic of our national bard, and quite certainly not among his best known. The line I remember included something about a tyrant, though, and in the new selected poetry and prose - The Best Laid Schemes, edited by Robert Crawford and Christopher Maclachlan - I think I've maybe found it.

It's in a poem called 'Ode for General Washington's Birthday', written in 1794, and the lines on the memorial are, I think:

Dare injured nations form the great design
To make detested tyrants bleed?

It's actually a stunning poem, forthrightly republican in tone, and the last line is worth quoting too:

That palsied arm no more whirls on the waste of war.

and I find that resonates with me. As does this little poem I found in a Burns archive (it's not in the 'selected'):


Thanksgiving for a national victory

Ye hypocrites! are these your pranks?
To murder men and give God thanks!
Desist, for shame!-proceed no further;
God won't accept your thanks for Murther!

Robert Burns, 1793

Poetry and war

I took Andrew Motion's anthology of First World War poetry with me to the Somme last week, and I re-read some of the poems in it in odd free moments. I think it's a good anthology, with a wide range of poets represented. I was particularly glad to see women poets in it - non-combatants of course), including Eleanor Farjeon, Rose Macaulay, and Charlotte Mew. (Charlotte, by the way, is well worth reading for her other poetry on other subjects, not just the single poem here). I enjoyed reading the poems in the landscape in which many of them were written, and many of them still stand up in poetic terms, as well as reflecting the narratives and emotions of battle. To my mind Wilfred Owen remains as the outstanding poet in the collection, but Edward Thomas comes close, and Isaac Rosenberg, Ivor Gurney, Edmund Blunden and Siegfried Sassoon have some very moving individual poems.

In one of the cemeteries we saw the grave of Roland Leighton, Vera Brittain's fiancee; at Contalmaison the Heart of Midlothian Memorial had the famous MacRae poem inscribed on it, and poems featured heavily in many of the other memorials. I've started reading Martin Gilbert's Somme book, and it is liberally sprinkled by poems written by soldiers, some included in letters sent back to loved ones. They're very poignant, and very personal. They lead me to my question: what is it about war that prompts people to write poetry? Is it the prospect of imminent danger, possible death? Is it a different type of inspiration to that which leads to other types of poetry?

Somme: the details

On the road to Ypres we took a detour to the Tyne Cot cemetery, an introduction to the scale of death in the area. In Ypres we visited the Menin Gate, but I couldn’t find the Gordon Highlanders panel. I figure that most of any possible Buchan relatives would have joined that regiment. In the main square in Ypres they were setting up the seating for the cat festival. Apparently in medieval times the town had a problem with rats, and the cats weren’t doing their jobs properly, so they threw some down from the Town House, “for the encouragement of the others” as it were. They continued to do this annually, and toy cats were substituted relatively recently.

Then we were settled into our billet at Hardecourt aux Bois, a nice little village. The accommodation was excellent – two couples in each of two semi-detached cottages, and four other couples in the main farmhouse. One of the outbuildings has been converted into ‘The Rum Ration’, a drinking den with battlefield memorabilia and empty bottles round the walls. In the days to come we had some memorable evening sing-songs in it. The other half of our party of friends were staying in Longueval. We're all old friends, having travelled all over Europe together, and we're very comfortable in each other's company.

The following morning, before our first excursion, four of us walked up the road and cut along the edge of a field, among Yellow Archangels, ground ivy and wild hops. We came out onto the road and walked up to an impressive shrine to a local WWI hero. Just across the road from the shrine I spotted a fresh-looking drainage ditch cut into the chalky subsoil. I walked along it and saw a hole in the ground, with a piece of curved metal for a roof. It was too dark and too narrow a gap for us to see inside it. It was obviously the remains of a trench, and not marked on our map.

We drove to the massive Thiepval Memorial to the missing, and here, in the Register, I found two Will names, one from Laurencekirk, so a possible relative. The shock had me gasping for breath. We had brought with us a box of poppied crosses, and I laid mine here, to the memory of David Will. In the visitor centre I checked a database of Gordon Highlanders, and discovered another 11 Will names, 10 from Buchan. Thiepval was the moment which hit me hardest, because I hadn’t known that I might have relatives who were killed in the War, and now I had 12 possibles.

In Albert we visited the Somme Underground Museum, which I felt gave a flavour of trench life. I discovered that the roof supports I had found the previous day were called ‘elephant iron’. We drove on to the Beaumont-Hamel cemeteries, with the extraordinary caribou memorial to the Newfoundlanders who were killed in such numbers in the opening moments of the July 1st offensive. In Y Ravine cemetery I found a Mutch, another possible relative. By now I had realised that when I went home I would have to embark on a significant research programme to track down the Will, Mutch, Wood (McRae) and Stocks names on both sides of my family. The ground here has been left exactly as it was, pocked with shell craters and trenches, although now covered in grass rather than mud.

Next morning a group from the Hardecourt billet revisited the trench I’d seen the previous day. One of our group found two bullets in the ditch, and another found bones – a rib and the head of a femur; unmistakeably human, and the smoothness of the ball of the bone indicated it was from a young person. I’m just recording the facts here, because it’s difficult for me to describe the complexity of my emotional reaction.

We visited the Contalmaison cemetery next, the Tyneside Scots Memorial, and the Ovillers cemetery, where Harry Lauder’s son is buried. On to the huge Lochnagar crater, from the explosion of tons of explosive. In Peronne, as we sat outside a café having our late lunch, a wedding party started to arrive, and we watched the guests enter the church, the little attendants dressed in sailor suits, for this was obviously a naval wedding. In the next cemetery we visited, one headstone had a Star of David on it instead of a cross.

We drove to Froissy, for a trip on the Petit Train, a narrow-gauge railway which zig-zags up from the river Somme to the plateau above. In the afternoon we visited the German cemetery in Fricourt, and I found two inscriptions with the same name as my daughter-in-law. From here we moved to the Sheffield groups of cemeteries, set in pock-marked woodland. Then to the massive Serre Road No 2 cemetery, and here I found another two Will names, one serving with the London Scottish Regiment, the other, a G G Will, having emigrated to Canada from Inverbervie, had come back to be killed here. That had me in tears again. Fifteen possible relatives I hadn’t known existed! We finished the day with a visit to the Delville Wood Memorial. I didn’t go into the cemetery here – by now I was rather nervous of finding more family connections. But that night in the Rum Ration, listening to Max singing ‘A Gordon for me’, a shiver ran down my back.

So many experiences in such a short time were overwhelming, so I’m glad that we went in the company of so many good friends, and I'm grateful to Bruce, our expedition organiser and good friend, for putting the trip together.

I’ve visited France many many times – I’m a big Francophile – but I’ve always driven through Picardie en route to somewhere else – Paris, the Auvergne, the Dordogne, Languedoc. I’m glad we stopped this time.

Missed out the fact that we called in at Fromelles and got an update from a forensic scientist.

First Somme posting

I had known it would be an evocative and moving trip, but I had expected to be moved in the abstract as it were, by visiting the cemeteries and seeing where the battles of the Somme were fought. It turned into something overwhelmingly personal and direct. On the way south we stopped off at the Menin Gate in Ypres. I couldn’t find the Gordon Highlanders panel – it’s a massive monument, but I know I can check the names online. However, on our first full day we visited the monument to the missing at Thiepval, and there in the register were two Will names, one definitely from the Buchan area. I photographed his inscription and laid a cross in memory. Then in the visitor centre I checked the database and found another 10 Will names from the Gordon Highlanders, 9 of whom were definitely from Buchan. A couple of days later we visited the cemeteries at Beaumont-Hamel, and there was a Mutch, another family name. On our last full day we visited the Sheffield Memorial and cemeteries, and stopped to lay a wreath at the huge Serres Road No 2 cemetery. I was stunned to find another two Will names from different regiments – one a Buchan man who had moved to Canada, and subsequently enlisted in a Canadian Infantry Battalion, the other from the London Scottish regiment.

So that’s 15 possible family members I hadn’t known existed, and who lost their lives in the War. It’ll be interesting to find their connections with my direct line, or if they’re on collateral lines. And in the interests of balance, when we visited the German war grave at Fricourt I found two inscriptions with the same surname as my daughter-in-law’s family. I’ve got more work to do on the Will names, I’ve barely started on Mutch, and I haven’t looked at all at MacRae and Stocks – my mother’s side of the family. I suspect the MacRae’s will be from the Black Watch, as they were from Fife, but I don’t know about the Stocks side, apart from the fact that they were originally from Kirriemuir. My grandfather Stocks, who I never knew, served throughout the war and survived it, living to a good age.

I’ve come home profoundly shaken, with many more questions than answers. But at least I now know how good the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s database is, and that’ll give me some of the answers.

Travelling

Today the papers and radio are noting the archaeological and historical work being carried out on a World War I burial pit at Fromelles, in Northern France. It's fascinating, particularly as I'm off to the Somme with some friends tomorrow. (There are 26 of us in total). The Fromelles 'action' was, I understand, intended to block a potential counter-attack, 40km north of the main Somme battleground. In a 24-hour period, over 5,000 Australians and over 1,000 British soldiers had been killed.

We're visiting Ypres, Albert, Delville Wood, Thiepval Wood, Peronne and many other smaller sites. I know how moved I was visiting the WWII war grave at Bayeux some years ago, and I suspect this will even more affecting.

I'm taking with me Andrew Motion's anthology of World War I poetry, which contains some less-well-known poets, as well as the more famous ones.

Willow Warbler RIP

Outside my back door yesterday I found a tiny dead bird lying on its back, yellow legs in the air, claws clenched on nothing. It's usually speugs that fly into my windows, and goodness knows there's no population decline in that species hereabouts, but that's the first willow warbler I've seen close up. I remembered a summer walk in the Cairngorms, around the Uath Lochans in lower Glenfeshie. We had stopped for a rest on a crag overlooking the lochans, and below us, on a tree-top, a wee willow warbler was singing its heart out. It's a highly musical song, and I never tire of hearing it. At the time, or not long afterwards, I wrote a one-sentence poem about it, trying to reflect the continuous outpouring of song. So here it is. It was first published in Northwords Now, and later collected in Sushi & Chips.


Uath Lochan singer

Sudden surprise that a bird
you’ve often heard sing unseen
in the pine woods
today sang and sang
from the treetop below you
so you could see it
for the first time;
matching that lovely song
to the little brown scrap
with the yellowish chest –
a willow warbler, the book says –
as, miles from any willow,
from its high point
under your cliff,
that little yellow chest
pumps out that song
so well warbled
in the woodland
of your memories,
and what’s a warble
if not a clear
yet falling trill?


Copyright Colin Will 2006

Naming names

I managed along to the Dunbar Writers' group last night, and as always had a great time. A fortnight ago, when I came off my bike, as I pushed it home with my good arm, and knowing that something had broken in the other one, I thought, "This is so unfair, I've done my 'homework' for tonight." So I asked to read it last night, before I read last night's homework. I think it's a possible competition entry, so I won't post it, but I will post the poem I wrote for the last meeting.

We were asked to find out about our names, and to write something about that, so this is my effort. Apologies if the Latin title is wrong - I was never a classical scholar.

De rerum nominibus

It starts with a dove –
Columba, livia or palumba,
Rock or Stock – it’s misty
which was tamed and trained
to home, to scatter from boxes
with a clatter of pinions,
bred paler, whiter,
to become the dove of peace.

Colmkille took that name,
exiled for plagiarism and slaughter
from Clonard to Kintyre,
given hearth on Iona.

It’s more likely true than not
the saint walked the Pictish bounds
of Fortriu, debated with King Bridei,
with whom I feel more kindred.

So did pious parents
name me for an Irish Saint?
No. I’m secular, called after
their trysting place, Colinton Dell,
and its origins are mistier still.
Culling Toun, or Coling Toun
are names not yet resolved,
their etymologies unfigured.
When you get down to it
I’m still a man of mystery.

Colin Will
29/04/2009