Poetry Map
We all know poems about Scotland but can the shape and nature of Scotland be drawn entirely in poetry? StAnza has set itself the challenge to see if this is the case. Find out more about the project and how to submit your poem by clicking here, or browse the poems using the map. Latest poems are listed below.
Poetry Map of Scotland: poem no. 369
You can't eat a view
That's what my mom said. Brochview,
where I grew up. Halfway up the steepest hill,
blattered by sea gales, penned in by nosy sheep,
with salt-crust windows that eyed that broch
in all its solid, blocked squatness.
Smug old pile of stone is what it was.
And I a weaver's daughter, and holding
the requisite ever-knitting mother. Tourists
had expectations of me – oh my days just gazing
at the cliffs and contours of that island
that belonged to that broch.
We all belonged to that broch.
Sure enough, a view fills bellies not at all.
The bank took the view and the house away,
though I'd already walked out of shot, long gone
somewhere less picturesque. Still, if I'd known
when I left I'd never look back,
I might've stopped at a window one last time.
Maxine Rose Munro
View our full map of Scotland in Poems as it grows »
For instructions on how to submit your own poems, click here
All poems from our Poetry Map of Scotland are subject to copyright and should not be reproduced otherwise without the poet's permission.
Poetry Map of Scotland: poem no. 368
Treesbank Estate
These woods were dark and deep and long
I would walk through them, and sing a song
Though the path would become steeper
I never worried about the wood-keeper.
Trees trees trees surrounding me like
A green cathedral made me feel free
To enjoy a bounty here on earth
That dear place I knew since my birth.
The birds were soft, the birds were loud
I came here to escape the crowd
Light soft filtering through the leaves
And shadows that surrounded me.
The green, the trees that fallen lay
The dawning light, the darkened day
Times of year, the lengthening spring
Soon the summer days would bring
A sense of love and peace and joy
No other humans there to annoy
Alone and yet not alone I see
Those woodlands they have set me free.
Alex Frew
View our full map of Scotland in Poems as it grows »
For instructions on how to submit your own poems, click here
All poems from our Poetry Map of Scotland are subject to copyright and should not be reproduced otherwise without the poet's permission.
Poetry Map of Scotland: poem no. 367
North of the Border
It’s been thirty years. Next time I come
it may be to Crieff.
I will try to find Sauchie Road
and look out for Torleum View
like searching for a childhood home
I’ve forgotten the way to.
I won’t be able to go in,
its new occupants won’t welcome me,
I fear they may already be there.
You couldn’t come to the station
to meet me from the train
in your purple car as you did in Burnley.
Perhaps I will stay in the B&B
you were going to book for me
when you could afford it
and I could afford the rail fare.
Peter Donnelly
View our full map of Scotland in Poems as it grows »
For instructions on how to submit your own poems, click here
All poems from our Poetry Map of Scotland are subject to copyright and should not be reproduced otherwise without the poet's permission.
Poetry Map of Scotland: poem no. 366
View our full map of Scotland in Poems as it grows »
For instructions on how to submit your own poems, click here
All poems from our Poetry Map of Scotland are subject to copyright and should not be reproduced otherwise without the poet's permission.
Poetry Map of Scotland: poem no. 365
Gales are dialect raps
A kettle boiled gale force
Pours sea over the dock
With bones spit from a main course
Hour glasses level rocks
Boats traverse the trails of shoals
Upon layers of maps
Isles are tins, cups and bowls
Gales are dialect raps
Waves lather stone to soap
Nets are spun like webs
A coral kaleidoscope
Strobes floodlight the ebb
Chris Tait
View our full map of Scotland in Poems as it grows »
For instructions on how to submit your own poems, click here
All poems from our Poetry Map of Scotland are subject to copyright and should not be reproduced otherwise without the poet's permission.
Poetry Map of Scotland: poem no. 364
Cliff at Noss
They say this wet rock reaches
as far down into the sea
as the cliff stands dry above.
Staring into the drowning dark,
under the glassy slip and swell
of its elastic skin, I see what
could be plankton, ocean-drifters,
named for the wandering planets.
Or is it no more than a fine land-dust,
endlessly falling through unbordered black?
Does the cliff drop sheer, a mirror
picture of its twin in upper air?
Or is it loose, stepped and slabbed,
bottoming in a shifting rubble field,
tide-stirred, worked smooth by storms?
Gannets, saffron-smudged,
their tails stiff as whittled wood,
bank on ink-dipped wings, hang
as if strung on wires, plunge
in arrow-showers, seeing what
I cannot see: the silver-flashing
shoals, rock-anchored urchins
and soft incurled anemones.
Each bird rises from its narrow
ledge, dives, a sea-forager,
returns and dives again,
water and air its single element.
Imogen Forster
View our full map of Scotland in Poems as it grows »
For instructions on how to submit your own poems, click here
All poems from our Poetry Map of Scotland are subject to copyright and should not be reproduced otherwise without the poet's permission.