“GLAIKIT” proposals to change the title of Scots Makar to National Poet for Scotland have seemingly been dropped a day after they were first revealed.
Robyn Marsack, outgoing director of the Scottish Poetry Library, who will sit on the panel searching for a replacement for Liz Lochhead, told the Sunday Herald. “We are calling the role the National Poet for Scotland, not Scots Makar.”
Yesterday, Marsack backed down a little as she told The National that it was not a “definitive decision”. The Scottish Government said whoever took the role would still be referred to as "Makar".
Marsack said the first Makar, Edwin Morgan had never been too keen on the title, feeling it “backward looking” and confusing to anyone from outside Scotland.
Writer and actor Tam Dean Burn said any change in title would be confusing: “Scotland already has a National Poet – Robert Burns,” he said
“At a time when there is a drive to promote Scots in so many ways, including the appointment of a Scriever, it’s just plain glaikit to suggest Makar should be changed because people outside Scotland dinnae understand.”
The National’s Scots columnist, writer and teacher Matthew Fitt said: “Tae even think aboot daein this juist reveals yet again the faut-lines that exist atween some pairts o Scottish society and the Scots language.”
Marsack said it was good to see that people felt strongly about the title: “[National Poet for Scotland is] the title under which the succession to Liz has been discussed, but I cannot say that the title ‘Scots Makar’ has been definitively dropped. I am interested to see people rising to defend it,” she said.
“A confusion it causes is the expectation that the Makar should write in Scots, and this is not a condition of appointment. It’s good to see people feeling strongly about the poet’s title, and I think it is a tribute to what Edwin Morgan and Liz Lochhead have made of the role.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “Whilst the official title of the role is the National Poet for Scotland, which allows for a poet in Gaelic, English or Scots, they can also be referred to as the Makar and we have no plans to change this.”
Morgan held the role from 2004 until his death in 2010. Lochhead has since carried out more than 300 official engagements as Makar.
A slew of names have been put forward as a possible replacement, including Jackie Kay, Kathleen Jamie and Don Paterson.
One early people’s favourite for the role, Tom Leonard, yesterday said it would be very unlikely he would get the job. “I think there’s a few over-my-dead-bodies in the way before I would ever be offered the job,” he told the Kiltr website.
“It would just upset too many folk the very idea of my having an official position. My web journal for one thing, full of attacks on politicians and the Scottish language crowd. It’s nice that some folk have put their head above the parapet for my work. That’s as good a gong for me any day.”
A shortlist of five will be drawn up this week by a panel selected from the National Library of Scotland, Scottish PEN, the Literature Alliance, the Scottish Poetry Library, the Association for Scottish Literary Studies, and Stanza poetry festival. It’s then up to Nicola Sturgeon and predecessors Alex Salmond, Jack McConnell and Henry McLeish to choose who gets the job.
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