Scots poem of the month - May 2006

McPelvis Meddley I was able to trace [Elvis'] family tree, and when it got back to Lonmay it was like striking gold - Allan Morrison, BBC News Online, 23/03/04 Well ye can rob his grave for the strum o his hand shauk the pepper frae his hips aa ower the strand ye can mix his voice with-uh Jimmy Shand but don't you try on his blue suede kilt yeah ye can stap aa oor lugs wi milt but lee aff o his blue suede kilt * He ain't nithin but a teuchter screwin aa the quines pit his paw behind a pleuchter and he's plooin thru the brine well he got tae Carolina but he sterted oot by swimmin Loch Fyne * Freh bananas cook em thru always use auld lard peanut butter he loved hoo ye made his arteries hard We freh Mars Bars till they're hot, think battered haggis brill Elvis chose like ony Scot tae let his diet kill * He's caught in wir crap and he cannae get oot because we love tae roll in the gravy Gee Memphis the sack tell Graceland tae scoot coz Presley's a loon and no a baby He's rovin owre the heather in avaricious minds we sew gold lamé dreams in Elvisious minds * He don't want tae be fae Glescae for Glescae acts too rough he disnae want come fae Embro coz Embro's no a toon worth singin of He jist wants tae be fae Aiberdeen leave his wallet aff the sneck and we'll jist dip in... oh let him be (oh let him be) from Aiberdeen * Thangyew very muckle By W.N. Herbert from Bad Shaman Blues (Tarset: Bloodaxe Books, 2006) Poem supplied by the Scottish Poetry Library

About the poet W.N. Herbert was born in Dundee in 1961. He was educated there and at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he published his Ph.D. thesis on Hugh MacDiarmid (To Circumjack MacDiarmid, OUP, 1992). He has published seven volumes of poetry and four pamphlets, and he is widely anthologised. His last five collections, all with the northern publisher Bloodaxe, have won numerous accolades. Forked Tongue (1994) was selected for the New Generation promotion, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot and Saltire prizes. Cabaret McGonagall (1996) was shortlisted for the Forward and McVities prizes; and The Laurelude (1998), written whilst he was the Wordsworth Fellow at Grasmere, was a PBS Recommendation. All three books won Scottish Arts Council book awards. The Big Bumper Book of Troy (2002) was longlisted for Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Saltire Prize. His most recent Bloodaxe collection, Bad Shaman Blues (2006) is a PBS Recommendation. In 2000 he edited the bestselling anthology Strong Words: modern poets on modern poetry with Matthew Hollis. After holding several Scottish residencies in Dumfries and Galloway and in Morayshire, he moved to Newcastle in 1994 to take up the Northern Arts Literary Fellowship and has remained there ever since, holding residencies with Cumbria Arts in Education and the Wordsworth Trust. He taught in the Department of Creative Writing at Lancaster University (1996-2002), and currently teaches Creative Writing and Modern Scottish Poetry in the School of English at the University of Newcastle. He has engaged in numerous public art and cross-media projects, making a film in Berwick, originating sculptures in Ambleside and Dumfries, and recently wrote a poem for a strip of stainless steel to be set into the pavement in the centre of Newcastle. He is the poetry consultant for the Westpark project, originating text and co-ordinating artworks across this development in Darlington, the largest public art project in the North East. He lives in an old lighthouse in North Shields with his wife Debbie Taylor, the novelist and editor of Mslexia, and his daughter Izzie.