Ceci n'est pas Stonehenge’, this is the cosmos,
distilled to elemental rock and stone,
depicting that interstellar collision,
four billion years away, a chaos
of realignment unimaginable,
when all the worlds we knew or didn’t know
osmotically pass through each other like ghosts,
to form new galaxies intangible.
Written mostly in Scots, Rab Wilson’s new collection is a timely comment on our climate of zero hours contracts and benefits sanctions. From social issues to politics, from the sublime to the absurd, Wilson homes in on the unique aspects of life in Scotland and sets out his poetic manifesto for our country’s future.
Rab Wilson is a widely published Scots poet, and has performed his work to all kinds of audiences throughout Scotland.
Table of Contents:
General Poems I
Zero Hours 11
In Memory of Tom Carrick 13
Richter Scale 14
First Bike 15
With Andy and Amanda in the Charity Shop 16
Salmon Nets and the Sea 18
Glasgow Close 19
The Spey Wife 21
There it is… 22
James Hogg Poems
Auld Lass 25
Boy Racers 26
The Teapot 27
Thir ir the Steps o Glendearg 29
Cornua Reparabit Phoebe! 32
The Mairriage Stane 35
Souch… 36
General Poems II
Cultyir at Killie Odeon 39
Double Act 40
The Paralytic Games 41
Delighted by a Dallop Outside Dereham 42
A Spider’s Web Glazed with Frost 44
Chairm 45
Elegy 46
Salmon at Euchan Falls 47
Burnsiana
Burns Country 51
Portrait of Colin McLuckie 53
Negative Sublime ii (or Portrait of Lord Byron) 55
Blind Ossian 56
Sir Walter Scott 57
Blue Burns 58
Twa Plack 59
General Poems III
Apparatus for Determining the Absolute Om 63
Can `Can’? 64
On the Marriage of Dear Carr to his Beloved Girl 65
Maggie, Maggie, Maggie
I The Lanely Daith o Maggie Thatcher 66
II Maggie’s Funeral 67
III Everything Must Go… 69
Bank Robbers 70
Royal and Ancient 71
War Memorial, Afton Valley 72
Roads 73
lermontov
Fareweel Unwasht Russia 77
Ma Kintra 78
The Dagger 79
General Poems IV
Six Swans a Swimming 83
What The Alien Speaks of When he Speaks
of Love 84
Dirty Des 86
Gerry Sells the Jerseys 87
Gallus! 88
Fourteen Coos 89
Lown 90
If I could Just Go Back there Once Again… 91
Im NHS
Martin’s Moral Compass 95
Cuid Hae Duin Better 96
A Rhyming Epistle tae Dave Prentis 97
nhs Ayrshire’s Garland 102
Leviathan 105
Armistice Day 108
Owersettins
Epilogue 111
Ah wis Deid, Syne Leevin 112
The Tuim Boat 114
The Gowden Boat 116
General Poems V
Desert Island Discs 121
At the Church of the Latter Day Empiricists 122
God’s Telephone Number 123
Glenafton 2 Camelon 0 124
Heich Simmer 125
Eftir the Kistin 126
The Auld Toon Schuil 127
Here We Go… 129
Polquhirter 130
Wheel 131
The Christmas Bulbs 134
Equipoise 135
Shards 136
General Poems VI
Paradise Enow! 139
`Seldom Seen’ 140
Saint Valentine 141
Jockeys Destroyed! 142
Lang Ling Legammachie 143
Skeely Fowk 144
The Question 145
Rant
Rant 151
The End o the World 152
State of the Nation 155
Hou the First Tory wis Made 158
Promises, Promises… 159
Dave’s Hair: The Journey Continues…! 165
Ode to Lord Winston! 169
General Poems VII
The Waithercock 175
Treasuir 176
The Stanes Dwam in the Dykes 177
Multiverse 178
Burnt Sienna and Periwinkle 179
Raxin fir the Dawin 180
Veesion 181
Design 182
The Horseman’s Word 183
The Greater Sea 185
Notes to Zero Hours
About the Author :
RAB WILSON was born in New Cumnock, Ayrshire, in 1960 and worked in the Ayrshire pits until the end of the Miners’ Strike of 1984. He then left the mining industry to train as a psychiatric nurse in 1986. A Scots poet, Rab writes predomi-nantly in Lallans, and his poetry has appeared in some of Scotland’s leading poetry magazines, and regularly in The Herald newspaper’s daily poetry column. He has performed his work to varied audiences throughout Scotland and has appeared at the Edinburgh Festival, the Robert Burns International Festival, the Burns an a’ That Festival and was a featured poet at the Wigtown Book Festival.
Review :
Many of Wilson's poems here, in both Scots and in English, are essentially stories in miniature, which is perhaps why he so often seems inspired by storytellers like Walter Scott, as well as artists like Joan Eardley. He has a highly effective skewering style, cutting through pretence and pomposity with ease. SUNDAY HERALD
