Norman MacCaig (1910-1996) was a major Scottish poet of the twentieth century. The following poem is included in his collection, The Sinai Sort (1957):
November night, Edinburgh
The night tinkles like ice in glasses.
Leaves are glued to the pavement with frost.
The brown air fumes at the shop windows,
Tries the doors, and sidles past.I gulp down winter raw. The heady
Darkness swirls with tenements.
In a brown fuzz of cottonwool
Lamps fade up crags, die into pits.Frost in my lungs is harsh as leaves
Scraped up on paths. – I look up, there,
A high roof sails, at the mast-head
Fluttering a grey and ragged star.The world’s a bear shrugged in his den.
It’s snug and close in the snoring night.
And outside like chrysanthemums
The fog unfolds its bitter scent.
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Dec 7th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
I’ve just been responding to another blogger about the state of poetry in our schools and, reading this poem has just made me realise that we never got presented with any contemporary Scottish poetry at all. In fact our only exposure to our poetic heritage consisted of a heck of a lot of Robert Burns at primary school and a singular example of the work of Robert Louis Stevenson. I can’t complain about what I was taught, it was a decent enough cross-section of English poetry, but in a country as blatantly nationalistic as Scotland is, it does surprise me a little. I wonder if things have changed much?
There is an interesting article on the BBC News website about the current standard of the teaching of poetry in our schools which you might find of interest:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7131133.stm
jb says: Thanks for the link. I love the list of the 10 most commonly taught poems in primary schools. Your own experience of poetry in school was probably down to the national curriculum. Let’s hope it’s changed by now.