Highland Daunder
Kestrel in ma chest: wheesht yersel —
you belang right here, amang th gorse n heather.
Lat thaim ramble their een ower you —
yer broun physique stravaigin th glen isnae an unnatural sicht.
Ignore their conflummixt n scunnert physogs —
thay cannae sense th braken brainches we’in you.
Follae that uncommon spinal path.
Moor yersel tae th wasterly winds.
Search oot th juttin headlands
n staund yer graund.
Converse wi yer pure vyce —
thay’ll naw imagine however thay dinnae ken ony higher.
Be as affected person as th fantoush siller birk —
Aye … or as fleetin as thistledoun.
*
Scots-English glossary:
skouth – to look about attentively
daunder – stroll
wheesht – hush
stravaigin – wandering about casually
conflummixt – confused by an unwelcome shock
scunnert – disgusted
ony – any
fantoush – flashy
siller – silver
birk – birch
fleetin – floating
This record was compiled utilizing Stooryduster
This week’s poem is by the Scottish Jamaican author and artist Jeda Pearl and comes from Skouth, the opening part of her newly printed first assortment, Time Cleaves Itself.
Black immigration to Scotland started as early because the fifteenth century, however, as Pearl exhibits in her poems, it may nonetheless end in misunderstanding and rejection. A bit of the poet’s household historical past is related. “Jeda Pearl” is the nom de plume of Jeda Pearl Lewis, “Lewis” being the surname of her Black Jamaican father who got here to Scotland within the Nineteen Sixties, a reputation that “nonetheless speaks to some Scottish (or British) roots again within the household tree, blended with African roots.” She goes on to clarify: “My mom’s aspect is Scottish with Irish ancestry. She was white and grew up in Scotland and Northumberland … Each my dad and mom are deceased (mum in 2019, dad in 2021). Her maiden surname was Irish.”
As a poet working in each Scots and English, Pearl belongs to a convention of Black Scottish poets slowly being established, its best-known and distinguished consultant being the previous makar of Scotland, Jackie Kay. Pearl can also be a disabled author.
Highland Daunder is a title that evokes the pleasure of roaming a selected panorama, treating it as a homely acquainted house through which to walk about, relatively than a survival or health problem. Instantly, the speaker within the poem identifies panorama and language as indissoluble, and indissolubly sure up together with her personal identification. However, on the identical time, this solitary determine in her factor of Highland gorse and heather additionally registers as prey, encircled, and threatened. The placing picture “kestrel in ma chest” suggests a frightened, hammering heartbeat: it could be robust as a wing-beat when the kestrel swoops or soars, or counsel the attribute hovering movement the chicken makes use of in monitoring its prey.
The poem’s narrator addresses her personal panic within the impatient however affectionate model of a mum or dad when confronted with a fussing youngster: “Wheesht yerself” (hush your self). The following two couplets bristle with thrilling diction: a ghostly refrain of insiders, difficult the individual they think about an intruder due to her “broun physique stravaigin th’glen”, is rebuffed and ridiculed in notably flavoursome phrases for his or her “conflummixt n scunnert physogs”.
A refusal to be depicted as “an unnatural sicht” within the third couplet is adopted by an admission of “th braken brainches wi’in you”, that are invisible, thankfully, to the detractors. The selection of “braken” suggests vulnerability, maybe sickness and incapacity, maybe varied sorts of non-public loss and familial disconnection. A brand new command-to-self is given which doubtlessly repairs the sense of breakage: “Follae that uncommon spinal path …” It’s as if the branches are to be reconnected by the backbone that’s the centre of the nervous system, retains the physique upright and coordinated, and, as a metaphor, signifies braveness and willpower. Pearl chooses a picture that replaces the informal stroll of the “daunder”: as a substitute, there’s a clear-cut path to be adopted to self-reintegration. This can require an extra publicity to the pure components of the Highlands. Pearl’s set of 4 commandments isn’t about escaping identification, however changing into extra firmly anchored to these actual and metaphorical “wasterly winds” and “juttin headlands”.
Pearl’s homiletics will not be merely about claiming nationhood: they present nationhood as a posh entity, a tree of roots and branches which it’s important absolutely to acknowledge and personal. Masks-wearing and mimicry are forbidden. The command, “communicate wi yer naitural vyce”, illustrates how oppressively internalised others’ social calls for threaten to change into.
Turning lastly to nature for symbols and fashions of smart behaviour, Pearl pairs the silver birch (a pioneer species, and Scotland’s most typical tree) and the enduring Scottish thistle. The aim is to be affected person, and rooted, “because the fantoush siller birk” but in addition “fleetin” (floating, and maybe fleet-footed, too) like “thistledoun”. Once more, when referring to her detractors, the poet makes use of the idiom of a bracing, parent-to-child response: “thay dinnae ken ony higher.”
Pearl’s poem could be very a lot in regards to the obligation to “staund yer graund”. It fills out the that means of these phrases concisely with a “daunder” amongst metaphors of “floor” so pure the reader hardly notices. Highland Daunder is a poem introduced, regardless of the self-doubt, as proof of the poet’s belonging, of realizing a spot and language as her personal.
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