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.
Poem Map of Scotland: poem no. 346
When I Return
When I return
My fondness won’t fall short.
And though stiff joints and weakened calves will surely slow me,
Straps tenderising rounded shoulders and lungs fit to burst,
My resolve, I’ll will to remain.
And we’ll hug like old friends,
The red rhyolite; bone dry,
forgiving and welcoming,
But demanding my unsullied attention
in marshalling me northwards,
By buttress and crack line
companioning my revelation,
With firm footholds, familiar and long standing,
Our common trust re-joined.
And then rest,
Feet overhanging,
Appetite sated,
Parity restored.
Bobby Motherwell
View our full map of Scotland in Poems as it grows »
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All poems from our Poetry Map of Scotland are subject to copyright and should not be reproduced otherwise without the poet's permission.
Poem Map of Scotland: poem no. 345
Writing about Tiree
Mining the landscape for words,
they’re piled for now above the tide
where, although they’re unlikely to get washed away
they are already drained of meaning.
This method doesen’t work.
It needs a painter
capturing in swift unbroken strokes
fine-stranded lady’s hair
ink washed, wet-on-wet,
and the bare bones of wreck, seeded in the sand
tossed there by Skerryvore..
And someone to properly explain
the stones with no beginning and no end
that come into their own
in the absence of distraction –
just the wash of surf and unimpeded light:
pink granite-banded gneiss,
a globe of sandstone smooth and fine-grained as an egg,
white marble flecked with green serpentinite;
each one fits cool and dense into a human palm.
Sue Bard
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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. 344
Girvan Beach
The sea slackens. Disturbs
long rumpled ribbons of kelp.
Sometimes the moon. Mountain pale.
All that light going out.
Then only the sea. Always arriving.
Wave after wave plunges a muted roar.
As a boy I'd think:
let there always be time for this.
Meaning more time for me.
Now I am here. Changed. Unchanged.
This is the sound of memory.
These the surfaces of remembrance.
Thoughts like stones skip and drown.
Mark Gallacher
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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. 343
A Motorway Café for Birds
Roll up! Roll up!
Take your seat at Castle Loch.
There’s plenty to eat and drink
at this motorway café for birds.
Listen to the Warblers chatter
about whose turn it is to pay the bill.
Azure and Variable Damselflies
jostle over parking spaces.
Otters sneakily scamper,
playing peek-a-boo in the playground of rushes.
Swans show off by walking on water
while diving ducks wave their feet at passers-by.
Hotel rooms amongst the trees for rent,
with willing ants to carry your bags.
It’s where blue meets green,
at this motorway café for birds.
Paula Nicolson
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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. 342
Mungo’s Legacy
Not your usual jaunt from East to West,
to Glasgow or to sainthood.
Thrown by royal Loth off Traprain’s cliffs,
cast adrift to cross the Forth,
storing up a trauma in the womb
to occupy a lifetime’s therapy,
Mungo birthed at Culross, and the rest
is history – or legend if you will.
They came back, Mungo’s bairns; re-settled
post-war streets in Haddington,
where they could nod to Traprain’s bulk,
choose their own voyages of life and love,
without benefit of monks or ministers,
play leapfrog with the memory of Knox,
play catch up with the country folk
who know the score, and name each hill.
Here SNP and Labour vie to throw
each other’s yoke off, fight or argue for
that Holyrood control, the saintliness
or ugliness of power – while Glasgow
maybe still remembers Mungo, with
his godly therapy, his special words
to calm the storm and cross divides,
his goodness spite could never kill.
Jock Stein
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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. 341
Loch Voil, Dhanakosa Retreat Centre
The waves are galloping west
full length of the loch, white manes tossing,
racing each other then sinking.
I remember the kelpies of myth,
horse-headed and fish-tailed who, singing
lured travellers to their death.
There seem to be footsteps following –
but it’s only the prayer flags, clattering
as they are whipped by the wind.
This morning the heads of the hills
are turbaned in scarves of grey mist
but the young leaves and clover-strewn grass
gleam as green as a goblin’s eyes.
Here is a place to regain childhood’s belief in fairies,
though it makes no promise that nature
will progress in order, or sunshine
appear when summonsed, but rather
offers joy in the unexpected –
red clouds of sunset at midnight,
a rainbow half as high as the sky.
Magic must be caught on the wing:
like the swallows’ evening flight
chasing insects; in an image of ripples
flowing around reeds and boulders;
in words that fly and sing.
Anne Ballard
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.