Referendum Rant Competition
 

http://www.first-scottish.co.uk/the-referendum-rant/

Sorry if this is already on Eratosphere. The link is to a poetry competition inviting contestants to give a Robert Burns take on the forthcoming Scottish Independence Referendum. Cash prizes, presumably in whatever currency us Scots vote for.

Thanks for posting news of this competition, John. The Spectator had a recent comp calling for poems on the referendum in the style of William McGonagall, but this is a horse of a whole different color, or a tartan of a whole different design.

As I read the competition announcement, the organizers mention Burns but don't actually ask that entries be written in imitation of his style. Do you have reason to believe that Burns pastiche is what they're looking for?

Two things in the announcement give me pause:

Any metrical form is welcome – the ballad stanza, rhyming couplets, iambic pentameters, free verse are all welcome options.

Surely they don't think that free verse is a metrical form?

More recently the [group behind this comp] sponsored the Reboot of Tam o’Shanter, attracting nearly 80 poems from all over the world, almost certainly a record for a poetry competition.

Can they really be so out of touch with the universe of poetry competitions that they believe 80 entries comes anywhere close to being a record?

Perhaps logically it could be argued that free verse is a metric form in the sense that it's form is defined in terms of the absence of metre, it's the null case :) But I doubt that's what they were thinking, more likely the person writing the blurb wasn't a poet.

I think the 'record' they're claiming has to do with the length of the poems in that competition, since the poets were asked to rewrite Burns' Tam O' Shanter: On the page for that competition they state: "Nearly 80 contributions were received of over 300 pages, making the competition a candidate for the Guinness book of records. The winners and all contributions were published on Facebook." But that claim doesn't make too much sense either, I guess.

You can find the winners of the Tam O' Shanter competition here on Facebook. I had a quick look, I wouldn't say the quality struck me as great, but those are long poems; that's an awful lot of rhyming couplets -- and as I say, I only had a quick look at a couple.

Anyway, at least there are six prizes ranging from £25 to £300, and they seem to have a reasonable set of judges.

From the brief given on that link, it seems clear that:

-The poem is to be what 'someone like Burns alive today' might write re the impending constitutional change;
obviously, open to wide interpretation!
-It need not emulate Burns' style, language, form or metre.
-It could be long (cf Tam O'Shanter) but need not be (and probably ought not to be that long!)
-It can argue on either side of the debate, or be even-handed.
-'Give us something new.'

So basically anything poetic whatsoever that pertains overall to the matter in hand and is fresh, not hackneyed, appears to be invited.

If you want to win anything then you had better be FOR Scottish Independence. No-one on the other side will win a brass bawbee. How do I know? The names of the guys mentioned tells me. And one hundred and fifty lines? You have to be joking.

Having said that I have something that might do.

Here is something sent to Lucy which you might be interested to see:

Help !
Dear Lucy,
Thank you for your past help in publicising Tam o' Shanter reboot , and I wonder if I can once again enlist your help .

I sent you details of a new competition ,The Referendum Rant (Rules etc attached) requesting views on the forthcoming referendum in Scotland, in verse.
Since the competition was launched at the beginning of April we have had over 40 entries but the standard , frankly , has been disappointingly low . Now we know from the experience of the Tam-o'-Shanter reboot that there are some very good poets out there , but we are just not reaching or inspiring them.

We have extended the closing date to September 8 and I just wonder if a puff from you might get the ink running.

Very grateful if you could do something .

So many thanks

Best wishes

Hugh


Hugh Lockhart
10 London Street
Edinburgh
EH3 6NA
0131 556 3743

Come along now. All he has is a load of rubbish. Time foor us to slip in. And we've got till September!

How about this then?

The Noble Thing

...think fredome mair to prys
Than all the gold in warld that is.

John Barbour: The Brus

We saw the invaders' fires in the valley.
Their impious revels borne upon the breezes
Stank in our nostrils like their rotting cheeses.
At last we had no time to shilly-shally.
Their devils' fires were burning in the valley.

We were the architects of our calamity.
We had felt the iron fingers on our collars
And paid a strong sufficiency of dollars
To co-exist in spurious amity
As willing architects of our calamity.

They are come to desecrate our ancient places,
They are come to turn free people into chattels,
Too numerous to defeat in open battles,
This gallimaufry of gross, alien faces
That spit upon our ancient, holy places.

They will not see us watching from the shadows.
They will not see us crouched above the treeline.
Our counter-moves are feral, secret, feline.
To trap the rats that swarm upon our meadows,
And, one-by-one, to slay them in the shadows,

To drag them from the feasting and the laughter,
Rip out their throats and leave them staring, tearing
At fickle life that flits away uncaring
Back to the doleful dark before and after,
Far from the fires, the feasting and the laughter.

We thought we were too feeble to resist them.
They came with promises and civil speeches.
Like wolves they raven and they suck like leeches,
Like viruses they paralyse the system.
We thought we were too feeble to resist them

We were the architects of our calamity.
We sold our children and our children's children,
And grovelled in the temples of the heathen,
Prostrate in our pusillanimity,
The willing architects of our calamity.

If we must die then let it be for Freedom,
With all the benison of blood can give us,
The rolling wheatfields and the tumbling rivers,
The silver sands about our golden kingdom.
For Freedom. Die for Freedom. Die for Freedom..

That's a splendid piece, John. But ... errr ... is it about the Referendum? It sounds a bit like a replay of the Battle of Culloden. Still, that makes it a lot less boring and a lot more fun than a Referendum.

A piece that carries conviction, John. I like the style. Of course it is partisan. I reckon such a historic view may sit well with the judges if they are indeed determinedly 'pro' (Yes) - even if not to the taste of total possible readership!

A few quibbles (my attention to these details a mark of esteem!):

1. The title and prefatory quotation I have traced without difficulty to poem 'The Brus' (The Bruce) written around AD 1375 by John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen. Might a footnote to accompany the poem, giving that attribution, assist some of its destined eventual readership? Or maybe these words are known widely enough; I'm not sure.

2. Spelling - gallimaufry (not 'gallimaufray' - unless that was a coining of yours so as to incorporate 'fray', as in combat; affray?)
Incidentally, which I found of interest: Collins Concise defines it as 'a jumble; hotchpotch. [C16: < F gallimaufrée ragout, hash, <?] Something then not unlike haggis?!

3. 'Like viruses they paralyse the system.' - To me 'viruses' is an anachronism in this piece. Perhaps 'Like pestilence they paralyse the system.' ? But also, do viruses (or pestilence) generally paralyse? Some cause fever and trembling: arguably, a heightened rather than suppressed activity of the [bodily] system! So maybe...
'Like pestilence they permeate the system.' ...
'Like pestilence, that preys upon the system.' ...
'Like pestilence imperilling each citizen.' :D ?
[and in that last, imperilling scansion too?]

4. 'With all the benison of blood can give us,' - The 'of' confused me at first. I would more easily have read 'With all the benison which blood can give us,'. Then I understood better (I think) your intent: 'With all [that=which]' (the word being implicit, elided) 'the benison of blood can give us,'.
But... how readily is blood shed seen as a benison? A blessing?
Of course your intent may be a dark sarcasm here.
Still, I wonder whether 'With all that benison which blood can give us,' or 'With all of benison [which (implicit, elided)] this blood can give us,' - or some other variant - may have merit for clarity and impact.

Or maybe there is no problem with it 'as is', and I make something of nothing!
If so, please excuse my gallimaufry of words and accept my benison!

Thank you, Graham.

I will correct the spelling mistake.

The poem is well known in Scotland. It was in a stained glass window in my school, or part of it. Perhaps I ought to attribute it.

Freedom from oppression comes only with the shedding of blood. Or at least the narrator of the poem thinks so. The poem is fairly bloodthirsty. Do I believe it? Not really. I incline to the quisling view, as will the Scots in the referendum.

I want something that does paralyse the system. What does?

Brian. you haven't been following the rhetoric. I hardly blame you. Mr Salmond has his claymore drawn. And the battle is Bannockburn. The Scots won that one with great slaughter/

On the train from Kings Cross to Leuchars someone came pushing a refreshment trolley, demanding a ridiculous sum in return for a bottle of water. "Ah," I remarked to my companion, "had we but charged like that at Bannockburn..."

You may be right, John. But I note that the bookmakers seem to be offering 1/8 for a NO, and 9/2 for a YES. I know nothing about betting, nor indeed Scottish history, but that sounds to me more like Culloden than Bannockburn ...

I don't think the Scots would have got very good odds at Bannockburn. They were outnumbered 4 to 1.

Culloden was a battle between Catholic Highlanders and Calvinist Lowlanders. Nothing to do with England at all really. The Catholics bit the dust and Calvinism ruled. It was still ruling in the 1950s when I lived there.

Don't listen to the bookies, Brian. The battle comparisons are all wide of the mark for this is an all Scotland affair. It looks like a possible 80% poll and the tide of YES is rising steadily especially in the cities and the Central Belt. This is going to happen. If you can get ITV player or STV on satellite the first big debate - Salmond v. Darling is on tonight and that's going to do 'No' no favours. In literary terms Darling's friend J K Rowling may be bank rolling 'No' - but YES have Edwin Morgan's legacy and the best of contemporary Scottish novelists, including the peerless James Robertson. There are more than 340 separate grass-roots YES groups, all local and self-started all over the country - and on the other side there is 'astroturf'. There are also around 50 sectional YES groups from Academics for YES to Women for Independence, from Fishing for YES to Poles for YES and many others you couldn't even imagine - and funny ones too, my favourite being Dugs for YES. All the registered YES campaign organisations are based here; 88% of the 'No' campaign ones are based outside Scotland. We are awash with volunteers; they, it seems, have been paying helpers, some even shipped in from constituency Labour parties from the south. And in literary terms (and of all levels of talent, including great to very little) - the writers, playwrights, poets, actors etc are overwhelmingly lined up with YES. The Festival is threaded through with referendum plays and revues and they, like the thousands of public meetings have been, will be thronged. Though the press, apart from the Sunday Herald, is entirely 'No', like the BBC (which has become the focus of mass protests outside its Glasgow studios) the best journalistic writers MacWhirter, Bell and Ascherson have all come out for YES - as has Judy Steel. It is a movement worthy of the scale of the issue. So - just think a reversal of the nobs versus the mobs of Edinburgh in 1707 - and this time even the dowager Duchess of Hamilton is on the side of Scotland's independence.

That sounds pretty convincing, Nigel. I must confess that I have no strong feelings either way about the outcome. My only concern is: if Scotland becomes independent, will the price of malt whisky skyrocket?

Nigel, your enthusiasm reminds me of the enthusiasm wasted on Neil Kinnock's Labour Party in the 1980s and 90s. All the academics, teachers, actors, writers and community activists were on 'our' side. The other side invariably won.

Academics, teachers, actors, writers, community activists... Yup those are the people who truly know. However, I trust Nigel has punted his all. At 8 to 1 he'll make a bloody fortune. Go it, Nigel.

I'm not a betting man, John - and in any case it seems somehow demeaning to reduce so great a matter to that level. I only went on about the 'creatives', Adrian, because of this site's interests; I've even written the odd poem on the theme myself. There's plenty of business, manufacturing, commerce, natural resources (especially renewable electricity {we currently do 46% of that}, oil and gas) people - even the odd banker (shudder) - on our side as well. Check out www.businessforscotland.co.uk to see how solid that is - oh, and talking of 'odds', the chairman of William Hill has also joined our ranks just today. Figure that? As to the serious question of malt prices, Brian.... you probably already pay less for it in France than we do here. I wouldn't worry, we'll want the consumption to go on rising. Slainte!

I can't say I'd be very happy about independence, Nigel, but if you do get it then I'll send you a great big thank you (in verse) for preserving England from the Millipede.

I'll look forward to that Nicholas - the poem I mean. Unfortunately you flatter us. Scottish MPs have made the difference to only two General Elections since 1945 (both only for short term governments) - and that is the real root of the problem. It doesn't matter who we vote for - or almost never - and we are now, certainly since 1999, a completely different polity, heading, under four different administrations, in the diametrically opposite direction to the UK south of the Border - and we want to go on doing so across all areas of policy. That is really why, just for plain democratic health, this has to come. I've not posted poems on the subject here, among other reasons which have kept me off this site for six months, mainly because it seems to be seen merely as a vehicle for pastiche at best and ribaldry at worst. There has, of course, been some splendid comic - if pointed - writing inspired by it. Try James Robertson's "The News Where You Are" in his series of 365 word stories. It's on You Tube from a kirk meeting in Elgin and gently delightful, both as text and delivery.

Has anyone tried to send something in? I have. Twice. And did I get an email saying they had got it? I did not.

As you were. My work of genius is now in there. And winning I trust.