Pàdraig MacAoidh

Pàdraig MacAoidh is a writer, academic, broadcaster and native Gaelic speaker from the Isle of Lewis.

He has worked at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, at Trinity College, Dublin, and for BBC Alba, recently wrote an critical study of Sorley MacLean and is currently the Sgrìobhadair at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig.

 

Logorrhoea

Bu tu gaol òir m’ òige

do ghàire ghaoil mar fhir-chlis

an geamhradh gorm Leòdhais

mo ghaol, mo rìbhin òg.

 

Nan robh mi nam fhear-iomchair

‘s chan e fear-bholg, fear-cuideachd,

bhithinn air tairsginn gaol maireannach

an àite logorrhoea

 

agus a-nis tha mo ghaol aig tèile

mar bu chòir ‘s mar bu dual,

ged a tha do sholais nam speuran

a’ lainnireadh thar a’ chaoil.

 

Logorrhoea

You were the gold love of my youth

your laugh love like the northern lights

in the blue Lewis winter

my love, my young love.

 

If I was a bearer,

not a waster and follower,

I’d have given you lasting love

in place of logorrhoea.

 

Now my love’s another’s

as is right, as should be

though your lights are in my skies

glittering across the kyle.

 

(Reproduced with kind permission of Pàdraig MacAoidh. Further work available via From Another Island – Clutag Press + thanks to Kevin.)

Destination

Destination

Difficult to go back to the island you came from,
knowing its boundaries have shifted, sediment’s been stirred
by salt’s relentless progress, till little remains
precisely in position of the soil you walked upon,

But if you insist on taking that route home,
there are chants and incantations, timeless refrains
which you must remember to recite, old words 
that will lift your feet, enabling them to step on tracks of foam

Trailing in the wake of ferries, fishing boats
speeding to your harbour. They will allow you to go back
but only if you’re certain this is exactly where you want to float.
Otherwise, take your charts out to ensure you’re guided by exact

Remembrance. You may find out the island’s 
not where you want to go.

A work in progress reproduced with kind permission of Donald S. Murray

Weaving Songs

This autumn will see the publication of new poems by poet Donald S. Murray entitled ‘Weaving Songs’

I got a sneak preview of his writing earlier this year and it’s great.

In the prelude to the poems, Donald tells of the memories of his father and the other crofter/weavers working in the area;

 ‘The presence of looms provided the village of my childhood with much of its energy and vitality.

 Even as I walked along its road, their noises seemed to provide me with some kind of soundmap to the area. At the most southerly end, Aird Dell, there was Dòmhnall Barabal working on his machine. At the other, near the river, there were Murchadh Dhodu’s feet clicking on the pedals. And in between, there were others, men like Iain Mhurchaidh Bhig, Donaidh Timotaidh, my own father, Aonghas Dhòmhnaill Stufan. Each one of these men seemed to possess a Hattersley loom with its own unique set of sounds, its own beat, even its own hours when its clack and rattle were to be heard. Donaidh, for instance, was a man who worked late at night; my Dad preferred to be out and about in the early morning. The evening was set aside for Church, faith and family.

 And so it was throughout the islands of Lewis and Harris at that time – the same rhythms and music echoed from Rodil in the far south to Port of Ness in the north. Working on the loom had more than its share of advantages for the crofter. It allowed him (or in rare cases, her) to work the land, look after sheep, cut peats, while at the same time obtain a relatively regular income from the tweeds which the mills delivered in their lorries to the crofthouses on the island. The fact that there were no regular hours to follow was an advantage to the weavers. It allowed them to take time off to attend sheep-fanks and cattle-sales, harvest a field of oats or spend an evening fishing. Such precious freedoms were possible in the sheds and outhouses in which the music of the loom could be heard.”

http://www.acairbooks.com/

Bàrd Mhealboist

Prev.

These Islands, We Sing

The Scottish Island Writers Network (SIWN) is very pleased to be able to announce the forthcoming publication by Polygon, of a new landmark anthology of Scottish Island poetry. The anthology is edited by Kevin MacNeil, and the project has received the financial backing of SIWN for associated launch and author events.

Many of Scotland’s most important poets grew up or chose to live on Scottish islands. This anthology pays tribute to the islands’ creative output by bringing together a huge array of poetic talent, from the internationally-renowned – Sorley Maclean, Iain Crichton Smith, George Mackay Brown, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Hugh MacDairmid – to those fantastic poets deserving of more attention – Jim Mainland, Aonghas MacNeacail, Meg Bateman, Alex Cluness, Jen Hadfield, and many more – in one wonderful collection. With poems exploring the themes of love, language, landscape, identity and belonging, These Islands, We Sing is a significant and heartfelt celebration of poetry and place.

Editor Kevin MacNeil was born and raised in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Novelist, poet, playwright, editor, aphorist and lyricist, his books include A Method Actor’s Guide to Jekyll and Hyde, The Stornoway Way, Love and Zen in the Outer Hebrides and Be Wise Be Otherwise. He is currently working on an album with William Campbell, a new novel, a film, a play and a travelogue-memoir based on his 1,300km cycle down the Danube in September 2009 for two cancer charities.

A full listing of author events will be available in the near future.

To receive notification of the publication and to buy a copy please go to:

http://www.birlinn.co.uk/book/details/These-Islands–We-Sing-9781846971969/

116

Image © www.hkhoney.org/

Take from my palms, to soothe your heart,
a little honey, a little sun,
in obedience to Persephone’s bees.

You can’t untie a boat that was never moored,
nor hear a shadow in its furs,
nor move through thick life without fear.

For us, all that’s left is kisses
tattered as the little bees
that die when they leave the hive.

Deep in the transparent night they’re still humming,
at home in the dark wood on the mountain,
in the mint and lungwort and the past.

But lay to your heart my rough gift,
this unlovely dry necklace of dead bees
that once made a sun out of honey.

November 1920

Osip Mandelstam, translated by Clarence Brown and W.S. Merwin.

Via.

The Greatest Painter Of Night

“What do you want to be when you leave school?” He asked.

“I want to be the greatest painter of night.”

 

“The what?”

“The greatest painter of night.”

“And what exactly does that mean?”

“I want to paint the night in such a way that no other painting compares to mine.”

“But what do you mean by ‘night’, the darkness?”

“No, there’s darkness in the morning but it’s not the same. And night isn’t always dark; sometimes it’s quite bright, like in The Starry night.”

“That’s very unusual for a girl,” He said, “are you sure that’s what you want to do when you leave school?”

“Yes, the only thing I want to be is the greatest painter of night.”

“But why night? Why not the greatest painter of something else, like fire or maybe eyes, I hear they’re very hard to draw.”

“So is the night.” I said. “But it’s not about that. I didn’t sit down and think about what’s hard to paint, or what will impress people. I want to be the greatest painter of night because it’s the most important thing to me.”

“And why is it so important to you?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“Why not?” He asked.

“Because if you knew why it was important to me you would focus on that when you looked at my paintings and not the night itself, which is the only thing that matters. It’s like my dad said before he had to go, ‘I wish I could explain how much I love you, but if I was able to then I suppose it wouldn’t be love.’”

http://www.hauntedbird.com/

Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop was born in 1911 in Worcester, Massachusetts. When she was very young her father died, her mother was committed to a mental asylum, and she was sent to live with her grandparents in Nova Scotia. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Vassar College in 1934.

She was independently wealthy, and from 1935 to 1937 she spent time traveling to France, Spain, North Africa, Ireland, and Italy and then settled in Key West, Florida, for four years. Her poetry is filled with descriptions of her travels and the scenery which surrounded her, as with the Florida poems in her first book of verse,North and South, published in 1946.

She was influenced by the poet Marianne Moore, who was a close friend, mentor, and stabilizing force in her life. Unlike her contemporary and good friend Robert Lowell, who wrote in the “confessional” style, Bishop’s poetry avoids explicit accounts of her personal life, and focuses instead with great subtlety on her impressions of the physical world.

Her images are precise and true to life, and they reflect her own sharp wit and moral sense. She lived for many years in Brazil, communicating with friends and colleagues in America only by letter. She wrote slowly and published sparingly (her Collected Poems number barely a hundred), but the technical brilliance and formal variety of her work is astonishing. For years she was considered a “poet’s poet,” but with the publication of her last book, Geography III, in 1976, Bishop was finally established as a major force in contemporary literature.

She also painted.

Via.

Album

Haunted Bird hits iTunes today, a launch gig is at Bar Brel in Glasgow on Friday and there’s a wee session round my place on the 24th.

Wooden Heart

For Valentine’s Day. We are all made out of shipwrecks.

 

WOODEN HEART (sea of mist called skaidan)

We’re all born to broken people on their most honest day of living
and since that first breath… We’ll need grace that we’ve never given
I’ve been haunted by standard red devils and white ghosts
and it’s not only when these eyes are closed
these lies are ropes that I tie down in my stomach,
but they hold this ship together tossed like leaves in this weather
and my dreams are sails that I point towards my true north,
stretched thin over my rib bones, and pray that it gets better
but it won’t won’t, at least I don’t believe it will…
so I’ve built a wooden heart inside this iron ship,
to sail these blood red seas and find your coasts.
don’t let these waves wash away your hopes
this war-ship is sinking, and I still believe in anchors
pulling fist fulls of rotten wood from my heart, I still believe in saviors
but I know that we are all made out of shipwrecks, every single board
washed and bound like crooked teeth on these rocky shores
so come on and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember

I am the barely living son of a woman and man who barely made it
but we’re making it taped together on borrowed crutches and new starts
we all have the same holes in our hearts…
everything falls apart at the exact same time
that it all comes together perfectly for the next step
but my fear is this prison… that I keep locked below the main deck
I keep a key under my pillow, it’s quiet and it’s hidden
and my hopes are weapons that I’m still learning how to use right
but they’re heavy and I’m awkward…always running out of fight
so I’ve carved a wooden heart, put it in this sinking ship
hoping it would help me float for just a few more weeks
because I am made out of shipwrecks, every twisted beam
lost and found like you and me scattered out on the sea
so come on let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, just some tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember

My throat it still tastes like house fire and salt water
I wear this tide like loose skin, rock me to sea
if we hold on tight we’ll hold each other together
and not just be some fools rushing to die in our sleep
all these machines will rust I promise, but we’ll still be electric
shocking each other back to life
Your hand in mine, my fingers in your veins connected
our bones grown together inside
our hands entwined, your fingers in my veins braided
our spines grown stronger in time
because are church is made out of shipwrecks
from every hull these rocks have claimed
but we pick ourselves up, and try and grow better through the change
so come on yall and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, were just tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember

From Wooden Heart Poems, released 06 July 2010

www.iamlistener.com/