Now the Dunedin Public Library has launched a Robert Burns poetry competition. Charmian Smith gets tips on writing poems inspired by the Scottish bard.
If Robert Burns hadn't turned up the Scots would have had to invent a national bard, says Professor Liam McIlvanney of the Centre for Irish and Scottish studies at the University of Otago.
"One of the reasons Burns is so significant to Scots and people of Scottish extraction is that he seems to somehow embody in his poems various aspects of national life and character.
"It's almost as if by taking a copy of Burns with you when you emigrated, for instance, you were somehow taking Scotland with you encapsulated in the poems."
Robert Burns (1759-96) was one of the first Scottish literary celebrities plucked from an obscure background and feted and lionised in Edinburgh.
Prof McIlvanney attributes part of Burns's importance in Scotland to the political situation at the time.
Burns consciously set out to document the manners and customs of Scotland of his day, partly because he felt they were being increasingly assimilated by England after the union of parliaments in 1707, he says.
"It would be slightly too simplistic to say that Scotland had a literature where its politics should have been, but there's something of that.
"Literature became a sort of compensatory force."
It's come full circle now, he says, with the new Scottish Parliament buildings adorned with quotations from poets and novelists, almost as if to acknowledge the role of poets as the "unacknowledged legislators of the world" in the famous quote from Shelley.
Robert Burns has also influenced generations of poets, from the English romantics like Keats, Wordsworth and Byron, to John Barr, the "Bard of Otago", who wrote poems about Dunedin scenes and subject matter in a vigorous form of Scots in the 1860s, and modern poets like Seamus Heaney in Ireland, Les Murray in Australia and James K. Baxter here in Dunedin, according to Prof McIlvanney.
"In a book called The Man on the Horse, which is actually a reference to Burns' poem Tam o'Shanter, Baxter reflects on the significance of Burns to his own poetic development.
"He recalls how he was first introduced to Burns by his father, Archibald Baxter, who was a pacifist, through both oral recitation and he gave the young James K. Baxter a volume of Burns' poetry at an early age.
"Baxter talks about knowing Tam o'Shanter by heart at the age of 6, and he seems to suggest he wouldn't have become a poet if it wasn't for the great example of Burns.
"So it's not surprising when he comes back to Dunedin to become the Robert Burns Fellow at the end of the 1960s, Burns is very much on his mind.
"He writes a number of poems to and about Burns and lectures quite widely on Burns.
"It seems to be an ongoing relationship in that throughout Baxter's poetic development he uses Burns as a poetic touchstone, as it were."
The 2011 Robert Burns Poetry Competition calls for a poem in English or Scots inspired by the life or works of Burns, and Prof McIlvanney suggests several ways this might be achieved.
Burns wrote in a variety of moods and styles, everything from short lyrics like A Red, Red Rose to long narrative poems like Tam O'Shanter, satires, odes, elegies and epistles, and his subject matter is equally varied, ranging from love to politics and everything in between.
"Burns writes quite a number of poems about animals such as To a Mouse, To a Louse and Twa Dogs, where two dogs share their opinions of humanity and you get a nice humorous dog's-eye perspective on mankind - there might be a Kiwi equivalent people might explore," he says.
"He also writes a number of successful poems about festive events - there's a poem called Halloween, and another called Holy Friar about a sacramental occasion in the west of Scotland.
These are great panoramic poems that take quite a humorous look at different people and incidents involved in these festivities, and again that is something that might be applied in a New Zealand context - a test match at Carisbrook or something.
"Burns nearly emigrated to Jamaica and wrote On a Scotch Bard, Gone to the West Indies in which he imagines how his friends will think about him when he's gone.
"It might be interesting to imagine what might have happened to Burns if he had emigrated, and people might consider writing a poem around that theme."
Entries may be written in either Scots or English, in both of which Burns was fluent.
Scots, like English, is a cognate dialect of Old English, but developed separately in the medieval period and absorbed influences from Gaelic and French.
However, it was overtaken by a series of catastrophes that saw it fragment into a series of regional dialects.
The first was the Reformation, when the reformers adopted an English bible as there was no Scots translation.
Then, when the crowns of Scotland and England were united in 1603, with James VI of Scotland becoming James I of England, the court moved to London.
As the court was the main source of literary patronage, poets wrote in English.
Then, when the two Parliaments were united in 1707, English became the language of politics and public life.
"There is no hard and fast standard variety of Scots, so one doesn't need to fear being inauthentic or not using it properly.
"You can use as little or as much Scots as you are comfortable with. Sometimes it's just the odd word that gives piquancy to a stanza," Prof McIlvanney says.
Many of Burns' familiar poems are written in a classic six-line stanza rhyming "a-a-a-b-a-b", with a short fourth line that often sets up a punchy final couplet, as does this first stanza of To a Mouse:
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
"It's a difficult stanza to master because it requires four 'a' rhymes per stanza so it certainly tests the ingenuity of the poet, but it would be nice to see if any of the entrants can master the form," he says.
Entering the competition
The 2011 Robert Burns Poetry Competition, supported by Dunedin Public Libraries, Dunedin Burns Club, the Otago Daily Times, the University of Otago and the DCC, runs from November 20 to January 10, when entries close.
Entrants are asked to write a poem inspired by the life or works of Robert Burns.
It can be in English or Scots, and must not exceed 500 words.
Entries will be judged by Prof Liam McIlvanney and 2009 Burns Fellow poet Michael Harlow in three categories: published poet, unpublished poet and young poet (aged between 5 and 17).
The winning published poet will receive the Allan Millar medal and trophy and an invitation to the Burns Supper in Dunedin on January 22.
The unpublished poet will receive the Stan Kirkpatrick medal and an invitation to the Burns Supper, and the young poet will receive the Stan Forbes medal.
Winners will also receive book prizes.
The names of winners will be announced and prizes presented by 2010 Burns Fellow Michele Powles at a ceremony at 12.30pm on Burns' birthday, January 25.
Winners will be invited to read their poem or have it read on their behalf, and their poems will be published in the ODT on January 25.
Second- and third-place winners for each category will be presented with certificates.
All poems submitted will be published online by the ODT from January 10 and posted on the library's website.
Entry forms
Entry forms are available from libraries and the ODT or can be downloaded from www.dunedinlibraries.govt.nz.
Live embers
The Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Otago is holding a free public seminar "Dead Man's Ember": James K. Baxter and Robert Burns, exploring Baxter's imaginative engagement with Burns' poetry and personality, on November 30 from 9.20am to 4.50pm in the Hutton Theatre at Otago Museum.
Speakers: Keri Hulme, Ian Wedde, Geoff Miles, Paul Millar, Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, John Stenhouse, John Dennison, Penny Griffith, Lawrence Jones, Dougal McNeill and Liam McIlvanney.
To register, phone (03) 479-8952 or email ciss@otago.ac.nz
