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. 357
Troon Beach in Snow
Collie-coloured with snow and seaweed,
the beach plays fetch with the winter crowd.
Snowy hackles raised by last night’s frost,
children tug the fur to snowballs,
or smooth it with their sledge,
parents always close at heel.
Teenagers romp in puppy games,
throwing themselves like sticks
through a ruff of waves,
their flesh driftwood-pale against a litmus sky,
where the heavens blend to sunset.
Rowena M Love
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. 356
La Belle Vie Sans Merci
I listen to your La Belle Dame Sans Merci,
to the classroom antics of a Lanarkshire Grammar,
drilling in the canon. Only, you liked what you heard;
your clever-girl head engaging avidly
with Keats’ meaning - his poetics.
Now, you are 70 and adapting to
those inflictions on the body of living in time.
From the room of your own, you don’t need
the services of a drone to offer perspectives
on a changing life, you can see them for yourself.
You just want the feel of the auld life back,
but ye ken well this cannae be,
regaining what is truly lost. You will renew
auld acquaintances, if willing, and imagine
new ways of being in the spaces that remain.
William Hume
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. 355
Vikings in Uig Bay
Carved Queen,
do you contemplate
this King’s demise,
like the culled Hebrideans?
Your porous hand caressing a chased cheek,
as artisan horses flank your position –
he pushes you into the open.
Finger pinched towers silhouette against
the gannet laden sky, defending
a Nordic horde.
His Berserkers bite
the tops of cuneate shields,
ordered to drown in lust and ash;
coming on the Bay tide.
From the white sands,
the pagan bishop’s sermon stains
perennial grass in the name of Tyr.
Another indigenous line desecrated
on a chequered sea, where
the longship sailed.
Robert Nesbitt
Author’s Note: The poem relates to the Lewis Chess Pieces, Uig Bay, Isle of Lewis, and linking us to the Vikings.
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. 354
Firhill, Glasgow
The line I unwound ties me to a
football ground 460 miles away.
Where Chic hooked one over
the wall leaving Martin scratching air.
Clearances sclaffed. Albert ghosting
into the box to finish.
Folding plastic seats where once
there was a terrace and a shed.
The university wagged its tower
at me over essays unwritten.
Sometimes, howling through a
ground glass throat, or in falling
snow smothering the game in
the first half, or freshly hoarse and half
cut from the anti poll tax march.
Gossiping contracts, transfers,
players’ gambling debts, petty crime,
pigeons, samurai swords and
unconscious players
told they were Pele.
The line stretches from the early 90s.
Now I’m thumb scrolling for
updates, insights on Twitter,
tapping refresh a thousand times,
clinging on till the blue boxes turn yellow
unchanged. Or not. BBC Alba feeds and
choppy YouTube highlights.
Til I can reel it in back to the source again.
Andy Breckenridge
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. 353
Cailleach
last spring when the trees began to lift up their trembling cups of green
I was the ghost of a virgin moving softly among
my tall sisters but now after the warm nights which have left
of the snowfall only a tattered shawl on the ground you
will see me as a roaring cailleach with wild hair streaked with earth leaping out
from the rock-cleft far over the receiving pool where in
black knees and elbows smashed fallen branches drown
Simon Weller
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. 352
st ninian’s isle
there’s a wind blowing in from the southlands
those dumpling clouds will bring rain tomorrow
but right now these hills are dry and the wild grass is golden
the ayre before me is glorious
gravel sparkling in the late summer sun
crunching this way and that as i make my crossing to st ninian’s
one lonesome seal sheltering in the bay follows my journey
a guardian angel watching over me like no other
such solitude is bliss and i am immortal
overhead the call of a curlew announces his flight
gliding toward the moorland to feed
whilst i navigate thrift on the bank
a wheatear watches as ancient kirk ruins appear over the brae
picts and norsemen long since departed
like the treasures once found under a tombstone
yet this isle
this old norse place
is priceless
Colin Rutherford