{"id":8768,"date":"2019-07-10T16:19:51","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T16:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=8768"},"modified":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","slug":"aspects-of-edinburgh-and-dundee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2019\/07\/aspects-of-edinburgh-and-dundee\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspects of Edinburgh (and Dundee)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At heart she possesses a sliver of ice<\/strong><\/p>Ice Maiden <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a warm night but the windows must be closed to keep out traffic rumblings and sudden sirens in the street below.  Blackwells is full to bursting for a book launch and the audience wants to hear the poet speak. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edinburgh, as Stewart Conn detects, might well have a sliver of ice at her heart, but Auld Reekie warms to her poets at any time of year. Coming to Edinburgh from Glasgow, he found it hard at first to adjust to the very different culture of the capital city, he writes in the introduction to Aspects of Edinburgh (published by Scotland Street Press). <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He began to feel less of an interloper when he discovered his grandfather had a licensed grocer\u2019s shop in the High Street, “at the heart of the Old Town \u2013 where he\u2019d leave a dram on the window-ledge for the beat constable coming off duty next morning.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time he became Edinburgh\u2019s inaugural Makar in 2002, Stewart Conn had developed a fondness for the city he describes with unsentimental and often unsettling clarity.  Aspects of Edinburgh<\/a> \u2013 beautifully illustrated with the drawings of his friend and neighbour, architect and draughtsman John Knight \u2013 come in many shades of grey. And occasional bursts of colour.  The poet might thrill to the dramatic skyline, but from Arthur\u2019s Seat he sees a timeless truth: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often when happiest<\/p>

we are most conscious<\/p>

of darkness. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

No whiff of Parnassus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Edinburgh was not the first city to create the post honouring the craft of \u2018making\u2019 with words. Glasgow had led the way, three years previously, by making Edwin Morgan the city\u2019s laureate in 1999\u00a0 \u2013 five years later, in 2004, the Scottish Parliament appointed Morgan Scotland\u2019s first Makar (in modern times), and that post is now occupied by Jackie Kay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the Unesco City of Literature, takes the appointment\nparticularly seriously.  (While Glasgow\u2019s\ncurrent and third Makar is Jim Carruth<\/a>\n\u2013 he followed Liz Lochhead in 2014 \u2013 Alan Spence<\/a>,\nanother Glaswegian, is now Edinburgh\u2019s fifth Makar.)  Each time, the poet, who receives a small\nhonorarium, is selected by representatives of the\nScottish Poetry Library, Scottish PEN, The Saltire Society, Edinburgh City\nof Literature Trust and the Council. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Makar: Stewart Conn prefers “that term\u2019s more egalitarian ring than \u2018laureate\u2019, with its whiff of Parnassus.” Down on the ground, a poet among people not stuck up, high on the Mountain of Muses. Egalitarian? It\u2019s a good provocative word in our time of increasing inequality when culture seems ever more the property of the middle class.  And it adds provocative responsibility to the role of city Makar.  That’s a topic worthy of further, deeper exploration but here it stirs curiosity about Scotland’s other Makars. We might go to Glasgow, Aberdeen or Stirling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
To the ‘silver bridie’ <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why pick on Dundee?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In Dundee, the outgoing Makar Bill Herbert, wrote and performed an uncompromising official tribute to the new V&A which embodies concerns expressed by Chris Silver in his essay published recently on Sceptical Scot. [City or Symbol? Dundee and perils of regeneration<\/a>].  And the Makar added to that when he emailed permission to quote from his Address to the Dundee V n A <\/strong>in this poetry blogpost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy poem is very much concerned with the issues [Chris Silver] raises,\u201d he writes, \u201cand I suppose my tenure as Dundee makar has made me reflect on what a city\u2019s culture can be \u2013 can it really be a willed thing as either a matter of policy or of expression?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first verse sets forth<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bilbao, Paree, That London, thon Hull –<\/p>

o aa the braa toons that tourists could visit<\/p>

why pick on Dundee? It’s duller than Mull<\/p>

and the hame o the Broons – plus, whaur the hell is it?<\/p>

Pit a daud o V n A in wir DNA<\/p>

and let’s see whit Dundee can dae.<\/p>

(And gee the Laa Hull monument a Prince Albert beh the way.)<\/p>Address to the Dundee V n A<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

WN Herbert<\/a> was appointed as Dundee\u2019s first Makar in 2013 to coincide with the city\u2019s bid for European Capital of Culture status. \u201cI think the Makar\u2019s real job is this\u201d he wrote on his blog<\/a>, \u201cto reflect Dundee back to itself, to Scotland, and to the current UK as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His poetry is shaped by the \u2018unlikeliest juxtapositions\u2019, according to the Scottish Poetry Library,<\/a> \u201cHis twin pole-stars, are Hugh MacDiarmid and William Topaz McGonagall, the intellectual and the clown\u2026 both committed to challenging the Scotland of their time\u201d.  More often than not, Professor Bill Herbert,<\/a> professor of poetry and creative writing at Newcastle University, chooses to do that in Scots.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wir not a singul naishun and therr\u2019s not a singul tongue:
we talk wan wey gin wir aalder and anither if wir young;
we talk diffrent in thi Borders than we dae up in thi Broch;
wir meenisters talk funny when they skate oan frozen lochs.<\/p>Can\u2019t spell won\u2019t spell<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

His reflex reaction to the Kengo Kuma building jutting into the River Tay was to call it a silver bridie.  \u201cWhen it first came along I was like most Dundonians \u2013 I was a cynic,\u201d he told STV in September last year<\/a> “I wrote about the silver bridie and how much it would cost. As we’ve grown to live with it, we grew to love it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing but the poem…and the truth<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But this love is not blind.  In the video performance broadcast on STV,<\/a> the final verse is delivered with powerful emphasise on the word witness<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gee us a museum that\u2019s no jist a mirror but a witness<\/p>

tae the toun o whale ile, liberty, and sweetness,<\/p>

tae uts lairdies and uts cairdies that noo are wede away,<\/p>

let the canny and uncanny deid speak within oor V n A.<\/p>Address to the Dundee V n A<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

During his three-year tenure, as SPL records<\/a>, Stewart Conn set about raising poetry throughout the capital, organising public competitions, introducing poems on city buses.  Now, in the sensitively drawn Aspects of Edinburgh \u2013 a complementary collaboration between poet and draughtsman in a \u2018city of landscapes\u2019 \u2013 he contemplates familiar landmarks of Old and New Town with affectionate candour. In Close Names, he teases out a lingering ‘undertow’ of loss and deprivation: the city\u2019s “division into haves and have-nots\/never more discordant than today.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not just a mirror, but a witness.  The essential role of each distinctly different Makar in each distinctly different city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, although Aspects of Edinburgh was launched on a warm summer night, the city of RLS emerges most revealingly in winter. It’s a rewarding and richly nuanced book with personal insight that traces an illuminating path through the streets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ice Maiden <\/strong><\/p>

In Winter she really<\/p>

comes into her own,<\/p>

the New Town grey <\/p>

under a watery sun,<\/p>

<\/p>

its whinstone setts<\/p>

ghosting broughams <\/p>

and sedan chairs, silk<\/p>

dresses swishing,<\/p>

<\/p>

the Old Town, once <\/p>

haunt of cut-purses<\/p>

and men of letters;<\/p>

today\u2019s imbalance<\/p>

<\/p>

more east-windy<\/p>

and west-endy than ever.<\/p>

Formerly prim spinster,<\/p>

then dowdy dowager, <\/p>

<\/p>

now part princess,<\/p>

part hen party hostess,<\/p>

at heart she possesses<\/p>

a sliver of ice\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"A
The Castle seen from a close: John Knight <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Featured image: Edinburgh from Inverleith by John Knight, former architect with Historic Environment Scotland <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Makar: Stewart Conn prefers “that term\u2019s more egalitarian ring than \u2018laureate\u2019, with its whiff of Parnassus.” Down on the ground, a poet among people not stuck up, high on the Mountain of Muses.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":8775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[400],"class_list":["post-8768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-dundee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8768","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=8768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18753,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8768\/revisions\/18753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}