Whit If? E-Book

Hugh McMillan

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 40

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Hugh McMillan's first collection in Scots, Whit if? poses the questions that you never thought to ask about Scottish history like 'Whit if Alexander haed Twitter?', 'Whit if John Knox haed fawen in luve wi Mary Queen o Scots?' and 'Whit if Jacques Brel haed jynt the Corries?' As both poet and long-time student of Scotland's strange and undervalued history, McMillan is the ideal guide to all the micht-hiv-bins of Scottish history, as well as all that wis. Humour is guaranteed, but that doesn't mean he won't be digging up many an educational gem along the way!

Leseprobe

HUGH MCMILLAN is a poet from Penpont in Dumfries and Galloway. He has written five full collections of poetry and has read in events and poetry festivals worldwide. His pamphlet Postcards from the Hedge was a winner of the Callum Macdonald Prize in 2009, a prize he won again for Sheepenned in 2017; as part of that prize, he became Michael Marks Poet in Residence for the Harvard Summer School in Napflio, Greece. He was also a winner of the Smith Doorstep Poetry Prize and the Cardiff International Poetry Competition. Devorgilla’s Bridge was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award and in 2015 was shortlisted for the Basil Bunting Poetry Award. In 2014 Hugh was awarded the first literature commission by the Wigtown Book Festival to create a work inspired by John Mactaggart’s The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopaedia (1824); McMillan’s Galloway was published in limited edition in 2014 and in a revised edition from Luath in 2015.

His selected poems Not Actually Being in Dumfries were published by Luath Press in 2015 and this was followed by Heliopolis and The Conversation of Sheep by Luath in 2018.

He has featured in many anthologies, and three times in the Scottish Poetry Library’s online selection Best Scottish Poems of the year. His poems have also been chosen three times to feature on National Poetry Day postcards, the latest in 2016. In 2020 he was chosen as one of four ‘Poetry Champions’ for Scotland by the Scottish Poetry Library, to seek out and commission new work. Recently he was given the role as editor of ‘Best Scottish Poems’ for 2021.”

By the same author:

Tramontana, Dog and Bone, 1990

Horridge, Chapman, 1995

Aphrodite’s Anorak, Peterloo Poets, 1996

Strange Bamboo, Shoestring, 2007

Postcards from the Hedge, Roncadora Press, 2009

Devorgilla’s Bridge, Roncadora Press, 2010

Cairn, Roncadora Press, 2011

Thin Slice of Moon, Roncadora Press, 2012

McMillan’s Galloway, privately printed, 2015

Not Actually being in Dumfries, Luath Press, 2015

McMillan’s Galloway: A Creative Guide by an Unreliable Local, Luath Press, 2017

Sheepenned, Roncadora Press, 2017

Heliopolis, Luath Press, 2018

The Conversation of Sheep, Luath Press, 2018

Haphazardly in the Starless Night, Luath Press, 2021

First published 2021

ISBN: 978-1-80425-001-3

The author’s right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

Typeset in 10.5 point Sabon by Lapiz

© Hugh McMillan 2021

Contents

AFORE HISTORY

Whit if whan the tectonic plates shiftit

Whit if Britain wis the richt wae roond?

An auld heid frae Skara Brae lookit back

Whit if fowk coud unnerstaun Pictish boondary mairkers

THE ROMANS

If the Romans haed fund the seecrit o Pictish ale

THE DAURK AGES

The Daurk Ages

If Columba haed bin chowkit bi Eithne

The feenish o the Picts

THE MEEDLE AGES

Alexander II

Whit if thaur wis Public Safety Advice oan the brent-new pestilence o 1348?

THE WARS O INDEPENDENCE

Whit if Alexander III haed Twitter?

Baldred Bisset Scottish hero

Whit if the Ettercap gied his spin oan it?

Whit the hinnermost spearmen hear o famous speeches

The pairt played bi the aitcake

The Pilgrimer

HISTORIOGRAPHY I

Whit if the deid coud spik?

The Sma Folk

Skelet 22

THE RENAISSANCE/REFORMATION

Whit if John Knox hid fawen in luve wi Mary Queen o Scots

Whit if the Great Michael an the Mary Rose haed a fecht?

Tudor Cultur in Scotland

THE SEIVENTEENTH AN AICHTEENTH CENTURY

What if Grierson o Lag haed tried a bit haurder?

Whit if the Glencoe Massacre haed bin quality assured?

The Darien Fleet sailin the day

Final wurd oan the Darien Scheme?

If ye coud stoap history

Whan pipers sortit wars

Whit if Rabbie Burns haed a mobil?

The Scottish Enlightenment nicht oot

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Oppression

Whit if we mindit the Alamo

MAIR HISTORIOGRAPHY

Christina Bruce

Chrissie Fergusson’s green life

Elspeth Buchan spiks

Boxed wummen

Nae Nemesis

MODERN TIMES

If David Barrie haednae dee’d

Maclean

If MacLean haed haed a bowsier beard

Whit if there was a visitor to Tong in Lewis in 1929?

Coontin richt in 1966

Whit if Jacques Brel haed jynt the Corries?

SCOTTISH SEEMBOLS

Discoorse atween King Oenghus an a Spaeman afore the Battle o Athelstane

The true Stane o Destiny

Whit if the Unicorn coud spik?

Whit if the haggis coud address itsel?

Hogmanay

SOME LAST THOCHTS

Scottish sailors mairkit oot o ten

Whit If we learnt history frae the National Trust?

What If the coast could speak?

Whit if Alexander Fleming haed diskivert penicillin in the saxteent century?

Afore History