LATE 2021, I was delighted to be approached by the Scottish Poetry Library to pen a critical response to Robert Burns’ work. I had yet to work on such a challenging commission, or on a project that took me so far from my grassroots practice. The other Trystin’ Thorns, as the project came to be called, Janette Ayatchi, Susi Briggs and Morag Anderson, were writers I admired. While I had been performing my own Reply Fae the Lassies for several years. I had never had the opportunity to delve deeper.
READ MORE: Robert Burns: Is celebration of bard missing the point if we're ridiculed for speaking Scots?
Let me be honest. Burns’s poetry was something that was done to me at school. An experience to which I’m sure many Scots can relate. I failed to see value in his work and experienced a creative block as a result. I decided to get as close to him as I could. I visited his home. Stood at his family’s smallholdings, trying to imagine what life would be like for a young Robert in Ayrshire. I peered at his personal artifacts through climate controlled, state of the art display cases. I watched the river rushing under the Brig O’ Doon, tried to hear the horse’s hoofs, darkness and chatter so prevalent in his poetry.
What I found was a radical man who would turn slave driver, a lover of women who played his darlings like a fiddle. A man who adored all creation but saw his own children as mouths to feed. A Libertine who collected taxes for the Crown. A bit of me loved him, like I have loved many men in my life, despite their misgivings. Despite contradictions in their nature.
When I arrived at the library on filming day, I took my seat beside the other writers as Burns’ equal. Certainly not in cultural impact or prevalence, but in basic human worth. Something he himself was so passionate about in his writing. Yet in Scotland, we don’t see Burns as human. We see him as a facet of our national identity, and for many that makes him untouchable. Any critique on his lifestyle or subject matter is an attack on Scottishness itself. Good, because if we hold onto the past too tight, the present becomes tattered. We desperately need a new Scotland.
Today’s Scotland is a country of inequality. Divided along racist and sectarian lines. Where gendered violence is at an all time high and 1 in 4 children live in poverty. On the brink of Independence, we have a real fighting chance of changing people’s lives for the better. We cannot allow this status quo to be the foundations upon which our state is built. It is crucial to question how power and platform is afforded to some and snatched from many.
READ MORE: Ellisland Farm, Dumfriesshire: Robert Burns’s barn, byre and stable found
What does this all have to do with Burns? Well, he was acutely aware of the structures of inequality. He both suffered and benefited from them within his lifetime. But in his legacy, the whitewashing of his life amounts to a form of tacit consent which allows such structures to persist. To deny that does a disservice to rich historical lessons that can be mined in his passing. I can’t help but feel if Burns was alive today, he would rally against the Cult of Personality surrounding his name, just as he satirised those in power within his lifetime.
We commissioned @vmcnulty67 @janetteayachi, @morag_caimbeul & @SusiBriggs1 to write new poems in response to Robert Burns' life & work. Giving voice and expression to the women in the bard's life & poems was a common theme. You can access all the poems 👇https://t.co/cLbPaDSoli pic.twitter.com/di8ZZ4zi6O
— Scottish Poetry Library (@ByLeavesWeLive) January 21, 2022
So back to the Trystin’ Thorns project. The project has received kind praise from the vast majority of viewers. However, some of the work has, quite predictably, gathered controversy. Much of which centres around gender. The gender of the writers involved, and the gendered nature of the critiques posed. Mostly, it started in the form of Twitter sniping, but disappointingly was stoked by some particularly lazy press coverage, in which none of us were invited to contribute or rebuke. My mind boggles to think that women’s voices can still be considered so incendiary. We talked about motherhood, lust, abandonment, love, nationalism and history. Set out to challenge aspects of a complex, problematic, and certainly engaging character.
To do this, it would have been impossible not to imagine and illuminate the women silenced in Burns’s rhetoric. Their lives’ are always so secondary to the poems he wrote about them, despite being his inspiration. The irony is, of course, that through this creative process our own contributions have now been misrepresented by some as simply tackling Burns’s misogyny or tarnishing his legacy. Which of course, is a silencing act in itself.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel