Scots featured poem - December/January 2009/10

This piece of writing was selected by the staff at the Scottish Poetry Library which receives Foundation funding from the Scottish Arts Council

The Lily Mair o a concept than a common flooer, I daurdna pu the lily, that gaes as the altar-cannle’s metaphor. An yet, as in the hert o a’thing pure, Sae likewise wi the lily, whase Sulphury yallow pollen bides its oor. John Glenday from Grain (Picador, 2009) Picador is an imprint of Pan Macmillan, London, UK  Copyright © John Glenday, 2009

About the poet John Glenday was born in Broughty Ferry in 1952.  His first collection, The Apple Ghost (Peterloo Poets, 1989), won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award in 1989 and his second, Undark (Peterloo Poets, 1995), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.  His most recent collection, Grain (Picador, 2009) is also a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.  He lives in Drumnadrochit and works for NHS Highland as an addictions counsellor.

Inspiration for the Poem The Lily is a version of a wonderful, wee, luminous poem by Donatella Bisutti, from her book ‘Penetrali’.  My understanding of Italian falters after ‘Nel mezzo del cammin’, so I worked from a literal translation, but I’d been so smitten by that poem I had to give it a go.