Forked Tongue

W.N. Herbert is a highly versatile poet who writes both in English and Scots. Forked Tongue was his first collection from Bloodaxe. Sean O’Brien has called him ‘outstanding… a poet whom nothing – including what he terms “the Anchises of the Scots Style Sheet” – will intimidate’. For Douglas Dunn, his was ‘the best writing in Scots – thoughtful, studied, clever – I’ve seen in years’. Jamie McKendrick admired his ‘vibrant’ poetry, his ‘ear for the sensuous music of Scots’ and his ‘ability to effect sudden shifts of scale that bring the human and the cosmic face to face’. Herbert wrote: ‘To be Scottish is to experience suppressed contrasts; it may be between your lifestyle and that of the affluent South, it may be between your speech patterns and the pervasive norm of Standard English. Unlike Ireland, Scotland is not supposed to be “different” or “foreign”. It is the country which is not quite a country, possessing a language which is not really a language. To use English or Scots, then, seems to cover up some aspect of our experience, to “lie”. The truth about Scotland, perhaps, can only be situated between the dominant and suppressed parts of language, in the region of the forked tongue.’ Forked Tongue is a book balanced between these opposites. At its heart are two groups of poems: The Cortina Sonata in English, and The Landfish in Scots. Both engage with the problem of re-creating a suppressed culture: Can a myth be ersatz? What is an inauthentic word? How complex is “Scottishness” permitted to be? Buttressed with recent poetry in both tongues, Forked Tongue mixes old and new, both startling English and untypical Scots. Like the gairfish or dolphins which speed through the Scots work, Forked Tongue is both fish and mammal. In its geographic sweep and linguistic range, Forked Tongue offers a new definition of what we call “British” poetry.

About the Author :
W.N. [Bill] Herbert is a highly versatile poet who writes both in English and Scots. Born in Dundee, he established his reputation with two English/Scots collections from Bloodaxe, Forked Tongue (1994) and Cabaret McGonagall (1996), followed by The Laurelude (1998), The Big Bumper Book of Troy (2002), Bad Shaman Blues (2006) and Omnesia (2013). His lastest collection, The Wreck of the Fatherland, is due from Bloodaxe in 2020. He has also published a critical study, To Circumjack MacDiarmid (OUP, 1992) drawn from his PhD research. His practical guide Writing Poetry was published by Routledge in 2010. He co-edited Strong Words: modern poets on modern poetry (Bloodaxe Books, 2000) with Matthew Hollis, and Jade Ladder: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (Bloodaxe Books, 2012) with Yang Lian. Bill Herbert is Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at Newcastle University and lives in a lighthouse overlooking the River Tyne at North Shields. He was appointed Dundee's first Makar in 2013. Twice shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, his collections have also been shortlisted for the Forward Prize, McVities Prize, Saltire Awards and Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award. Four are Poetry Book Society Recommendations. In 2014 he was awarded a Cholmondeley Prize for his poetry, and an honorary doctorate from Dundee University. In 2015 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.