{"id":9517,"date":"2019-11-06T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T09:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=9517"},"modified":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","slug":"five-poems-for-a-general-election-in-hard-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2019\/11\/five-poems-for-a-general-election-in-hard-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Five poems for a general election in hard times"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Don\u2019t be afraid. The words shine in a dark space at the end of the Seamus Heaney exhibition. The words he texted to his wife shortly before he died in August 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact his text message was in Latin: Noli timere<\/em>. But the meaning inspired the Dublin street artist Maser<\/a> to paint the words in English as a mural \u2018For good people in hard times\u2019 closer to Christmas that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hold on to the words. The door leading out of the Seamus Heaney exhibition in the newly refurbished Bank of Ireland museum<\/a> in Dublin is right beside the one leading in. The journey through the beautifully designed space in between reaches a turning point at the Good Friday Agreement.  I am probably not the only visitor to read the newspaper cuttings on display through a smir of tears. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The words follow me home. They emerge again at the start of\nthis peculiarly unnerving general election. The outcome could have so many\ntroubling or downright dangerous consequences across the whole of Britain and\nIreland. And who knows how much further it could spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is good reason to be fearful. That\u2019s a harsh unavoidable fact to face in the resignation of so many women from politics because of verbal abuse and physical threats. And yet. That’s good reason to defy the divisive populist manipulation of fear, anger and distrust. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that in mind, here\u2019s a selection of five poems for this\ngeneral election in hard times. To shine a light on our better nature, to\nremember how many different people are responding to the urgent issues of 2019\nwith human kindness, concern, and courageous conscience.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1: From the Republic of Conscience <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At their inauguration, public leaders
must swear to uphold unwritten law and weep
to atone for their presumption to hold office<\/p>Seamus Heaney <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Where better to start than From the Republic of Conscience? The poem \u2013 written for Amnesty<\/a> to mark International Human Rights Day 1985 \u2013 is finely balanced between the personal and public identities of a great poet. The \u2018dual roles\u2019<\/a> of a man “born between two cultures: Irish and English”. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two buckets were easier carried than one<\/p>

I grew up in between
 <\/p>Seamus Heaney from The Haw Lantern<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Significantly, in 1985, the poet returns from his visit to the \u2018frugal republic\u2019 as a \u2018dual citizen\u2019, his arms \u2018the same length\u2019 \u2013 connected and accepted between points of difference. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing on what would have been Seamus Heaney\u2019s 8oth birthday this year, Rory Carroll<\/a> notes that many of Heaney\u2019s poems dealt with borders. Yet, Home Place, the visitor centre dedicated to the poet, offers respite from Brexit and the backstop; a kind of oasis. As the manager, Brian McCormick, who happens to be a nephew of Heaney, puts it: \u201cWe\u2019re seen as a neutral space. There\u2019s a tranquillity within the building.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2: Here lies our land <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Small folk playing our part.
\u2018Come all ye\u2019, the country says,
You win me, who take me most to heart.<\/p>Kathleen Jamie <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That same sense of respite is echoed in the poem which greets visitors to Bannockburn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kathleen Jamie’s three-verse poem was written as a commission for the 700th anniversary of the battle. It is carved at the base of the Bruce statue on the battlefield \u2013 and included in this year\u2019s Best of the Best Scottish Poems<\/a> anthology edited by Jim Naughtie for the Scottish Poetry Library. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I sought a tone which suggested shared experience and quietude” writes Kathleen Jamie<\/a> explaining her influences and intentions. The tone, she insists, “didn\u2019t want to be didactic and certainly didn\u2019t want to be triumphalist\u2026 people who had been through the visitor centre before approaching the rotunda would have been subjected to a lot of medieval battle-clamour; their minds would surely be loud with nationhood and self-determination.”   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poem ends with a tribute to Hamish Henderson and a powerful last line: “Scots may have won Bannockburn,” says Jamie, “but not the land itself. The land endures, belonging not to those who \u2018own\u2019 but to those who love it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3: The Freedom Come All Ye <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Roch the wind in the clear day\u2019s dawin
Blaws the cloods heelster-gowdie ow\u2019r the bay
But there\u2019s mair nor a roch wind blawin
Through the great glen o the warld the day.<\/p>Hamish Henderson<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Hamish Henderson\u2019s song has rung through campaigns for peace and human rights for more than fifty years. Written for the peace marchers at Holy Loch in 1960, it is sung \u2013 to an adaptation of a challenging World War One pipe tune, Bloody Fields of Flanders<\/em> \u2013 with passion at political gatherings, protest marches, and independence rallies.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, as with Kathleen Jamie\u2019s Bannockburn poem, there\u2019s nothing triumphalist about the message renouncing Scotland\u2019s part in colonial oppression. Like Heaney, Henderson wore a diverse identity. Moving between Perthshire and Somerset ensured that the young Hamish \u2026”heard and sang the folk songs of three nations [in five dialects and two languages] long before I had the faintest knowledge what a folksong was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Donald Smith<\/a>, The Freedom Come All Ye, is “the anthem of an as yet unrealised Scottish socialist republic”. To Hamish Henderson it was an alternative International Anthem.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of many versions, there\u2019s none more moving than the recording of Hamish Henderson singing on Tobar an Dualchais<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

4: The Ark <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

They sent out a dove: it wobbled home
wings slicked in a rainbow of oil,
a sprig of tinsel snagged in its beak.
a yard of fishing-line binding its feet<\/p>Simon Armitage<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Climate change fires poetry and prose. As the International Panel on Climate Change published its latest warnings, Simon Armitage, the poet laureate, read his poem written to mark the launch of the UK’s new polar research vessel: The Sir David Attenborough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ark<\/a>, an elegy with song-like refrain \u2013 Bring back, bring back the leaf<\/em> \u2013 ended the Today programme that September morning a few weeks ago with more than usual resonance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttpss:\/\/twitter.com\/BBCr4today\/status\/1177172927478976513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1177172927478976513&ref_url=httpss%3A%2F%2Fjosephinecorcoran.org%2F2019%2F09%2F27%2Fks3-and-ks4-resources-climate-change-and-poetry%2F\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How long will it take? It’s sobering to remember that Carol Ann Duffy, the previous poet laureate, also campaigned for action and awareness before it’s too late. Her Parliament<\/strong> was filled with the sound of birds crowding the ‘leafless trees’ to whistle and croak their warnings. That was when the Guardian launched its Keep it in the Ground<\/a><\/strong> campaign. In 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5: April Sunshine <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You would have struggled there with your new grey stick!
You would have walked with your poppy red Zimmer
What do we want? You say? Peace in society<\/em>.
Time has not made your politics dimmer<\/p>Jackie Kay<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So to Scotland\u2019s Makar, Jackie Kay, and a tender tribute to her mum and dad who recovered from \u2018bleak midwinter illness\u2019 and a long spell in hospital. Who would think anything of them as they lay in bed. “You were just an old man\u2026you were just an old woman.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttpss:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PQYML0eOc0k\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It’s a rousing rejection of stereotypical reaction to ageing at a time when some seem keen to pitch old against young; a warm and stirring celebration of long lives lived whole-heartedly to the full. For peace but not passively. For democracy and human rights and tireless courageous campaigns against injustice everywhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n


When people who have lived all their lives
For democracy, for democracy
Live to see the spring, April sunshine
It\u2019s a blessing; it\u2019s a blessing. <\/p>Jackie Kay<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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

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