Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

February 2003 Volume 1 (1)

Endpiece

Writers in the flesh

Commemorating our dead writers helps us cherish those still living, writes Colin Will.

I have written before about name changes - how carefully they must be considered (if at all), and how important the 'right' name is. So it's a pleasure to welcome the very positive ring that Information Scotland has.

Along with the new name, we have a new editor. So it's also a pleasure to welcome Debby Raven, and another one to say thanks and best wishes to Wendy Frankiss in her new ventures. (Heavens, all these pleasures - I'll need to go away and lie down).

After the indulgences of the festive season, I was going to call this column The Waist Land, but I resisted. As I write this, I'm about to celebrate Burns Night in the usual fashion so I'll have to redouble my efforts in the gym in a vain attempt to burn off the calories. Why do we single out Robert Burns from the distinguished ranks of our fine writers? MacDiarmid rated another poet higher - "Not Burns, Dunbar!", but MacDiarmid was a very 'either-or' kind of person, and the idea that anyone could enjoy both probably didn't appeal to him. I'm a big admirer of Dunbar myself - the poet as well as the place - and I've frequently quoted his works in public (they can't touch you for it). But I find that my enjoyment of the poems and songs of Burns doesn't diminish my liking for the works of Dunbar, or of many other writers.

Who then, aside from Burns, should we celebrate? In the early nineteenth century, Sir Walter Scott was the most popular Scottish writer of his time, but maybe our literary tastes have changed. Being obliged to read him for the 'Highers' in the 1950s certainly didn't help my appreciation of his worth. The ideas and stories are strong, but his language is very much of his time, and today's society is so different from his that it's often hard to identify with his characters.

A later nineteenth century writer, Robert Louis Stevenson, on the other hand, is someone I still read for pleasure, and he'd have to be on my 'Best of' Bookshelf. How would you commemorate RLS? Treasure Island Toasts anyone? I'm looking for Samoa ideas - maybe I'll maybe take my ass to the South of France for the summer.

Byron was a major poet by any standards, with bags of charisma, idealism and talent, but it's often easy to overlook his Scottish birth. He lacks the common touch, and some other characteristics of our national identity. Or am I wrong? Somehow though, a Byron's Supper doesn't sound quite right.

No, I'm back to The Immortal Memory again. Burns had a unique combination of characteristics that make him loved here and abroad, two hundred years after his death. I don't think anyone else since has had the same claim on our affections, or not to the same extent.

How do we regard our living writers? One of the most encouraging features of the literary scene in recent days has been the success of festivals. I remember, for instance, the first Edinburgh International Book Festival. This has gone from strength to strength, proving again and again that readers like to see and hear writers in the flesh. And why not? By and large we're interesting and lovable people, with something worthwhile to say. Sitting in a tent on a dreich Edinburgh summer day with an enthusiastic writer can be a rewarding and enriching experience.

Another very successful festival is StAnza: Scotland's Poetry Festival, which takes place in St Andrews every year. This year it's changed to a spring festival, and it's on in March, with joint themes of Poetry and the Garden, and Poetry and Song. The list of featured writers and musicians is as impressive as ever, and with a national and international flavour (www.st-and.ac.uk/standrews/stanza).

Going to poetry readings is another good way to 'Meet the Writer'. A long-established Edinburgh group - Shore Poets - meets monthly and has huge (by poetry standards anyway) audiences. To find out what's on in your area, one of the best information sources is the Scottish Poetry Library's website (www.spl.org.uk). They have an events information service delivered by e-mail, and a good links page. It's a valuable specialist supplement to the services local librarians provide.

At the same time as the audience for poetry is a reasonable one, the situation for poetry publishers is as parlous as it ever was. Subscriptions are the bread and butter for poetry magazines, with Scottish Arts Council support being the jam (and some go without). It is so difficult to keep going and to make ends meet, that I sometimes ask publishers why they continue. "For the love of it" is the usual answer, and we should all be grateful that there are enough people who care about our literature to want to make more of it available to everyone.

Who remembers Burns' publisher? Who (apart from me) will raise a glass to the person who, by printing and selling his work, and by promoting the writer himself, laid the foundations for all those Burns Clubs and Suppers, and the whole Burns Experience in all its manifestations?

Colin Will, Dunstampin Books

Information Scotland Vol. 1 (1) February 2003

Information Scotland is delivered online by the SAPIENS electronic publishing service based at the Centre for Digital Library Research. SLAINTE (Scottish libraries across the Internet) offers further information about librarianship and information management in Scotland.

Last updated: 12 February 2004