Highland Daunder
Kestrel in ma chest: wheesht yersel —
you belang here, amang th gorse n heather.
Lat thaim ramble their een ower you —
yer broun body stravaigin th glen isnae an unnatural sicht.
Ignore their conflummixt n scunnert physogs —
thay cannae sense th braken brainches wi’in you.
Follae that rare spinal path.
Moor yersel tae th wasterly winds.
Seek oot th juttin headlands
n staund yer graund.
Speak wi yer natural vyce —
thay’ll naw believe but thay dinnae ken ony better.
Be as patient as th fantoush siller birk —
Aye … or as fleetin as thistledoun.
*
Scots-English glossary:
skouth - freedom of movement, liberty to range, freedom to express oneself, abundance
daunder – stroll
wheesht - hush
stravaigin - wandering about casually
conflummixt - confused by an unwelcome surprise
scunnert - disgusted
ony - any
fantoush - flashy
siller - silver
birk - birch
fleetin - floating
This list was compiled using Stooryduster
This week’s poem is by the Scottish Jamaican writer and artist Jeda Pearl and comes from Skouth, the opening section of her newly published first collection, Time Cleaves Itself.
Black immigration to Scotland began as early as the 15th century, but, as Pearl shows in her poems, it can still result in misunderstanding and rejection. A little of the poet’s family history is relevant. “Jeda Pearl” is the nom de plume of Jeda Pearl Lewis, “Lewis” being the surname of her Black Jamaican father who came to Scotland in the 1960s, a name that “still speaks to some Scottish (or British) roots back in the family tree, mixed with African roots.” She goes on to explain: “My mother’s side is Scottish with Irish ancestry. She was white and grew up in Scotland and Northumberland … Both my parents are deceased (mum in 2019, dad in 2021). Her maiden surname was Irish.”
As a poet working in both Scots and English, Pearl belongs to a tradition of Black Scottish poets slowly being established, its best-known and distinguished representative being the former makar of Scotland, Jackie Kay. Pearl is also a disabled writer.
Highland Daunder is a title that evokes the pleasure of roaming a particular landscape, treating it as a homely familiar space in which to stroll about, rather than a survival or fitness challenge. Immediately, the speaker in the poem identifies landscape and language as indissoluble, and indissolubly bound up with her own identity. But, at the same time, this solitary figure in her element of Highland gorse and heather also registers as prey, encircled, and threatened. The striking image “kestrel in ma chest” suggests a frightened, hammering heartbeat: it may be strong as a wing-beat when the kestrel swoops or soars, or suggest the characteristic hovering motion the bird uses in tracking its prey.
The poem’s narrator addresses her own panic in the impatient but affectionate style of a parent when faced with a fussing child: “Wheesht yerself” (hush yourself). The next two couplets bristle with exciting diction: a ghostly chorus of insiders, challenging the person they consider an interloper because of her “broun body stravaigin th’glen”, is rebuffed and ridiculed in particularly flavoursome terms for their “conflummixt n scunnert physogs”.
A refusal to be depicted as “an unnatural sicht” in the third couplet is followed by an admission of “th braken brainches wi’in you”, which are invisible, fortunately, to the detractors. The choice of “braken” suggests vulnerability, perhaps illness and disability, perhaps various kinds of personal loss and familial disconnection. A new command-to-self is given which potentially repairs the sense of breakage: “Follae that rare spinal path …” It’s as if the branches are to be reconnected by the spine that is the centre of the nervous system, keeps the body upright and coordinated, and, as a metaphor, indicates courage and determination. Pearl chooses an image that replaces the casual stroll of the “daunder”: instead, there’s a clear-cut path to be followed to self-reintegration. This will require a further exposure to the natural elements of the Highlands. Pearl’s set of four commandments isn’t about escaping identity, but becoming more firmly anchored to those real and metaphorical “wasterly winds” and “juttin headlands”.
Pearl’s homiletics are not simply about claiming nationhood: they show nationhood as a complex entity, a tree of roots and branches which it’s essential fully to acknowledge and own. Mask-wearing and mimicry are forbidden. The command, “speak wi yer naitural vyce”, illustrates how oppressively internalised others’ social demands threaten to become.
Turning finally to nature for symbols and models of wise behaviour, Pearl pairs the silver birch (a pioneer species, and Scotland’s most common tree) and the iconic Scottish thistle. The goal is to be patient, and rooted, “as the fantoush siller birk” but also “fleetin” (floating, and perhaps fleet-footed, too) like “thistledoun”. Again, when referring to her detractors, the poet uses the idiom of a bracing, parent-to-child response: “thay dinnae ken ony better.”
Pearl’s poem is very much about the obligation to “staund yer graund”. It fills out the meaning of those words concisely with a “daunder” among metaphors of “ground” so natural the reader hardly notices. Highland Daunder is a poem presented, in spite of the self-doubt, as proof of the poet’s belonging, of knowing a place and language as her own.
• This article was amended on 17 July to correct the definition of skouth, and the spelling of “wi’in”.
