Competition captures Burns

Dunedin has a special relationship with Scottish poet Robert Burns, so it's not surprising the city celebrates his birthday with an annual poetry competition. Charmian Smith talks to one of the judges, 2011 Otago University Burns Fellow Fiona Farrell.

Robbie Burns (1759-96) was one of the rare poets who encapsulated the mood of his time, Fiona Farrell says. She and Michael Harlow judged this year's Robert Burns Poetry Competition, which is a collaboration between the Dunedin Public Libraries and the Dunedin Burns Club.

"They become the voice of that time and they encapsulate that time - he obviously did that, and he spoke to people, and still does, in a way that has enormous emotional power. I think that's what poetry does, at its best, it gathers up the mood of the time, the mood of people and expresses it through the individual but it speaks to the whole. I suppose I was looking for poems that were heading in that direction," Farrell says.

In judging the competition, she and Harlow were looking for poems that followed the spirit of Burns but were not pastiche, that did not just mimic Burns' Scots dialect or where the impulse to write the poem was not clear, she says.

"What we were looking for, I suppose, was poetry that took the qualities that made Burns' poetry vivid for his contemporaries, so it would be written from a strong passionate feeling, it would have a sense of place, it would have passion, and not poetry that is a kind of fake tartan phoney Scots written in 21st-century New Zealand."

Sandra Jones, winner of the Allan Millar Medal and Trophy for unpublished poets, wrote a ballad, For Laura, In Drink in Scots dialect and rhyme, but it was saying something original, she says.

"It's taking that whole notion that ... booze is part of being a poet, that it's somehow romantic and wonderful, which I think has been a really pernicious vision. Personally I've seen people like [American poet] James Dickey reading completely drunk and off his face, and there's Dylan Thomas and James K. Baxter.

"I think alcohol may have unleashed something in them but it also meant they died miserably, destructively. I don't see really why addiction is such a romantic thing, not when you're up close with it, and this poem seemed to me to say something which countered that whole romantic notion."

One of many stories about Burns' death at the age of 37 claims he died of hypothermia by going to sleep in the snow on his way home from the pub, but it is generally thought his health was failing and he possibly had a rheumatic heart condition.

"Robert Burns was clearly a great poet; he determinedly wrote poetry in the language of the people he lived among; he countered a whole classical version of poetry and was part of that rebellious youthful moment in the history of the British Isles, and he gave voice to people who felt they hadn't had a voice before - so that was his importance then, and obviously for homesick Scots everywhere in the world it continues to be," she says.

However, the focus on Burns, as on any other European artist, is part of the complexity of culture in a former colony such as New Zealand, Australia or Canada, she says.

While the links between Burns and Dunedin is strong - his statue sits in the heart of Dunedin, and he was the uncle of one of the city's founding ministers - Farrell finds it somewhat strange that two of the university's fellowships are named after Europeans, including the prestigious Robert Burns literary fellowship.

"The Burns fellowship is really the Brasch fellowship, that belongs to Dunedin. It belongs to Charles Brasch, and although I think it's lovely his anonymity was preserved and it was given in a spirit of generosity and humble self-effacement, the fact that it's called the Burns fellowship has as much relevance to New Zealand as the Mozart Fellowship - they are just names."

"I think it locks this kind of emphasis on Scottishness with which I was brought up - I bike past my ancestors in the Northern Cemetery every morning, so I'm part of that whole thing, but we are New Zealanders.

Claiming the "Scottishness" of Dunedin or the "Frenchness" of Akaroa, where she has lived for 20 years, is part of the tourist branding of the place, she says.

"Akaroa places huge emphasis on the arrival of 37 French people in Akaroa, and it's become a huge part of their branding, just as Scottishness has become part of the branding of Dunedin. There's a truth in it but there's also at the heart of it a kind of racism and a kind of indifference and a sentimentalising of invasion.

"It's one of the quirks of New Zealand cultural life."

All entries in the competition can be seen here  http://www.dunedinlibraries.govt.nz/events/robert-burns-poetry-competition/2012-winners

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Results

• Unpublished poet: Sandra Jones, For Laura, In Drink, 1; Gary Richard Johnston, The Road to Portobello, 2; Dick Tait, The Silver Salmon, 3.

• Published poet: Lynne Hill, My Squeeze, 1; Kelvin Fowler, Th' Cheap Chieftain, 2, Beverly Martens, What More Could You Wish For?, 3.

There were 32 entrants, from as far afield as France.

For Laura, in drink

My Laura was a bonnie lass
I waved her off across the sea
But she cam hame, my
doghter dear
A poor damn'd drinker she.

And nae hae I but grief and pain for
promised joy.

Now I've been blythe with
friends so dear
And I've been cantie drinkin
'But stoppin' weel before the
yill
Has made me doun fallin'.

But nae hae I but grief and pain for
promised joy.

But Laura now loud grates
your lug
And picks up douts frae off the streets
And lets ye fill her glass or jug
Tells yairns until she greets.

And nae hae I but grief and pain for
promised joy.

Poor lassie, my fair Laura kens
Her lot of care and sorrows
But wine's a deep and loving
friend
Oh aye! Until the morrow.

And nae hae I but grief and pain for
promised joy.

The bottle's bocht, she carefully
hides,
She'll close the door and lovin'
The moment caught, cares cast
aside
The glass full to brimmin'.

But nae hae I but grief and pain for
promised joy.

That deil drink! Fair would I slay it!
My bonnie lass, how to save ye?
Fain would I hear from her lips
dropt
"Na, nae mair drink for me".

But nae hae I but grief and pain for
promised joy.

- Sandra Jones (Wellington)

My Squeeze

My squeeze is like an orchid
Original though, one of a kind
She's like heavy metal
That clangs upon the mind.

I won't say I love you
That's a dangerous word
But I'm okay to say
You're my best ever bird.

We are already an item
Let's hope it continues on
Can this relationship survive
Once I am gone?

Say see ya. Now we must
walk alone
Send me many emails to
read
Text and I'll come to you my
dear
No matter how many air
points I need.

 - Lynne Hill (Dunedin)

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