{"id":2978,"date":"2016-04-03T08:06:43","date_gmt":"2016-04-03T08:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=2978"},"modified":"2026-04-18T19:34:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:34:32","slug":"kert-wheeling-alleluias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2016\/04\/kert-wheeling-alleluias\/","title":{"rendered":"Kert-wheeling alleluias"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Confession: sometimes I read a poem \u2013 once, twice, several times \u2013 without a clue what it means, not even a wild guess.   And sometimes it simply doesn\u2019t matter. The poetry is in the feel and flow of the words, the grit and grain of the sound in your ear and what it conjures in your mind\u2019s eye.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some years ago I was invited to a traditional Mushaira<\/a> by an inspiringly progressive librarian who introduced Edinburgh ears to the wonderful sounds of Scottish Asian poets. I spent a magical evening sitting on a hard chair in the Nelson Hall of McDonald Road Library, half way up Leith Walk, listening to a succession of men and a woman or two reciting verse in Gujerati, Punjabi, Urdu and a few in English too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For an hour or so there was a hint of the Indo-Pak subcontinent in the air of Auld Reekie. I had no idea what most of the poets were saying but in a way it really didn\u2019t matter \u2013 there was music and humour, sadness and unmistakeable humanity in the voices. And the knowledgeable Scottish Asian audience that clearly understood many languages did not sit in polite passive silence but responded with a kind of creative heckling which swelled as their approval and enthusiasm grew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That memory is stirred by Christine De Luca\u2019s Soondscapes<\/em><\/a>, one of the poems selected by Ken MacLeod for Best Scottish Poems 2015<\/a>, recently published on the Scottish Poetry Library<\/a> website.   This is a different kind of aural experience. Christine De Luca<\/a>, Edinburgh\u2019s Makar, is from Shetland. She often writes in English but Soondscapes<\/em> is in Shetlandic. It is not quite a foreign language, and the poet helpfully provides a translation, but the true richness lies in her native tongue where flies beat against the window with a percussive strum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

I da dizzied hoose a strum of flechs baet<\/p>\n\n\n\n

endless drums fornenst a frenzied window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belligerent, dey want nedder in nor oot<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Translated into English…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

In the dizzied house, a strum o flies beat<\/p>\n\n\n\n

endless drums against a frenzied window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belligerent, they want neither in nor out.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Rich sounds of Shetland<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Better still there is the great treat of hearing the poet read aloud \u2013 and although the English translation makes the meaning clear, it can\u2019t match the heart-lifting beat of Shetlandic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

httpss:\/\/soundcloud.com\/scottishpoetrylibrary\/soondscapes-soundscapes-by-christine-de-luca<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love the twa windmills \u2018kert-wheeling alleluias\u2019. Listen and you can hear the wind blow \u2018idder-wirdly\u2019 through the \u2018bruckit feed-hoop\u2019. And it\u2019s undeniably the sound which first attracts the poet as she explains in the author\u2019s note<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

I wrote this poem while staying in Shetland.  It\u2019s about the rich world of sound which surrounded me, contrasting silence with hubbub; natural sounds with man-made; inexplicable sounds with imagined sounds.  (The wind whistling through a disintegrating aluminium feed-hoop was out of this world.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References to movement contrast from the captive houseflies, to the birds, to the steady hum of the windmills.  The windmills\u2019 arms allude to love, both spiritual (kert-wheelin alleluias<\/em>) and human (airms turn, da haert lifts<\/em>).  There are other references to spiritual space (chapel, its old organ, cloister, \u2018speaking in tongues\u2019).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s music in all of this and it\u2019s no surprise that Christine De Luca also works in collaboration with other artists, most recently with jazz musician Tommy Smith and traditional fiddler Catriona Macdonald.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soondscapes<\/em> is one of 20 poems chosen by Ken MacLeod<\/a> for the latest (and twelfth) issue of Best Scottish Poems<\/a> \u2013 this is a highly personal series, by no means a competition (as the Scottish Poetry Library emphasises) and the poet\/editor MacLeod makes his criteria crystal clear:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

What I was looking for were poems that say something likely to remain true, and say it in a way not said before, and say it right: every word a tap of the hammer that splits the rock and brings a new thing into the light.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The result is a treasure trove, I\u2019m tempted to post audio clips of each poem every day for the next twenty days. I know life will get in the way \u2013 however I will dip in as often as I can but please don\u2019t wait for Sceptical Scot postings, seek out the selection for yourself, then sit back and listen; in your mind\u2019s ear or the recorded voice, the poetry is often most persuasively in the sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PS Noting Ken MacLeod mentions an absence of Muslim poetry in the religious works he explored. Scope for a Mushaira in Scottish Poetry Library maybe?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featured image: Dunna Chuck Bruck is by Duncan C and published under Creative Commons licence CC by NC 2.0 \u2013 and in Shetland even bruck (rubbish) inspires poetry as you can see in the 2016 <\/em>Bards in da Bruck <\/em><\/a> competition for secondary schools<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Best<\/a>
Eight of the best Screenshot of Best Scottish Poems from Scottish Poetry Library website<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Never mind the meaning, sense the soundscape: dipping into the newly published Best Scottish Poems 2015, Fay Young gives up herself up to the rich world of sound via Edinburgh’s Shetlandic makar, Christine De Luca.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":2982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[104],"class_list":["post-2978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-christine-de-luca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2978"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18974,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2978\/revisions\/18974"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}