Dumfries & Galloway Fresh Voice Award Winner | Carolyn Yates, Gaze

 

 

 

Wigtown Prize Winner | Basil du Toit, Mermaid Indoors

 

The human had unsettled her – his

breathing difficulties underwater,

the puckering of his fingertips,

stinging of his eyes, the raw fish diet

that didn't agree with his stomach.

 

Now, she was sitting in his house,

smelling like a shoreline that has

been baked rancid in the low tide,

the great flail of her tail-fin curled

awkwardly backwards out of sight.

 

Her body spread the coldness of

iceboxes or shipping containers;

elements of salt and ammonia

composed her presence, the rank

mephitic odour of a dying fish.

 

Her gaze was fixed and ankylose,

stiff cellulose, unblinking, bare,

hardened by the eye-withering

sharpness of ocean saltiness;

blue scales speckled the carpet.

 

She spoke with the sadness of

a sea animal which has laboriously

learnt the one-sided language

of men, incapable of addressing

the alien, disfigured half of her.

 

She spoke of dualities – natural

and supernatural, middle class

and beatnik, two circulations

(one where the blood ran cold)

mingling fish and mammal.

 

She exclaimed her wonderment

at soft warm towels, humidifiers

and scented candles from John

Lewis; but mostly she spoke of

that world given up to satisfy

 

her keen, occasional taste for men –

shoals of bonefish and barracuda,

the perils of propellor injuries

and dredge fishing, dark realms

of maelstrom, wreck and kraken.

 

 

Wigtown Prize Runner-up | Mark Gallacher, Byne Hill

 

in memory of Greig Campbell 1950-2021

 

To get to its summit, I had to run past my father’s grave.

A chastening arrangement. The headstones of strangers and near ones

laid out with a view to do die for: Ailsa Craig, Arran, the Holy Isle.

Greater markers planted on the horizon,

like witnesses of stone, watching the brief tides

of history, little more than crossing storms. Generations like ghosts,

briefly vibrant, then gone.

 

The flanks of the hill were fern clad. A thigh-high mesozoic

swill of dark green you had to wade through.

The fear of coiled adders hurried you up the hill.

Often on my runs, I did not linger long at the summit,

thinking movement and speed was what I hungered,

not the stillness of our silted town on the end of a slack river,

where nothing ever happened, unobserved. The churches. The pubs.

The fields tilled by time and hurt.

 

I have climbed much higher summits, and stared into

much bleaker graves since then. But my father’ was the first,

and taught me nothing could be done,

except to mourn.

To light torches and spit paint on cave walls

as good as any other art or ceremony

that pretended we could counter death with supernatural alchemy.

 

I do not paint or write. I run.

Run with me, if you can.

Run fast. Run strong.

And if I fall: run on.

 

 

Wigtown Scottish Gaelic Prize Winner | Eoghan Stewart, Dante air an C1144 agus U1207

 

a’ cur mo chùl air gach dòchas

’s ga fhàgail a’ grodadh san luachair

’s ann tro fhearann donn ’s odhar

fo bhrùid am foghar buan a ghluais mi

 

seachad air a liuthad gheataichean iarainn

chaidh mi gu siar, gu siar, gu ceann na h-ifrinne

ach gun bhàrd nam iùil tron talamh iargailt seo

a chainnt ga smaladh le rhodendrons sna dìgean

 

mar chnap de chabair as dèidh na seilge

càrn de gheugan ghlainne dealain

’s ri taobh na slighe a’ fèitheamh breitheanas

na deamhannan maola a’ dearcadh orm

 

suas, suas na cuibhlichean a’ dìreadh

gu balla a’ chuaich làn ùisge marbh

na carbadan le sùilean òra a’ prìobadh

ceud fear sna bacan fàs a’ cladhach

 

meur fuadan a’ chuaich, àite na caim bàine

chaidh mi tarsainn air an drochaid airgid

far an robh eilean na cloinne ga bhàthadh

’s tom allt nighean eòbhain ga chur fodha

 

an tig sian beò fo eas choire nan cnàmh?

far nach eil ach dìle is earchall?

far nach dèanar faire ach àlan

aig bun allt sgùrr a’ chlaidheimh?

 

nuair a làigh mo shùil air an iuthairn

chunnaic mi taighean, laimrig is staran

’s mi bàthte, baiste, fo innis na creige gun liut

aig coire shùbh air leac san abhainn

 

an t-allt sruthach, siùbhlach, sùbhach, bàn

an caochan coirbte, ciar, caorach tron bheàrn

an steall beucach, nuallach, dearcach, àrd

’s an rathad na aradh cam, gu loch beag a’ teàrnadh

 

ceann loch shùbhairne fada dubh dòmhainn

an aile mar thonn-mara, na ceapan sleamhainn

air slighe a’ chladaich gu sgiath àirigh

’s mi a’ siubhal fàsach fliuch nan gailleann

 

’s tro na sgàilean uisge o neàmh ag iomain

bha mo rùn ’s mo thoil a’ tionndadh mar chuibhle

aig an aon astar leis a’ ghràdh a thionndas

a’ ghrian ’s na reultan ’s mo chridhe ’s mo chuimhne

 

 

Wigtown Scottish Gaelic Prize Runner-up | Gillebride MacMillan, Glanadh

 

Ghlan mi sibh aig uair sa mhadainn

an oidhch’ ud:

Làmhan ri phasgadh

Sùilean a dhùnadh

Casan a chur dìreach

Ceann a chur air cluasaig

An dèidh dhuibh sìoladh sìos,

Anail a’ crìonadh: sgìths a’ dol gu sìth.

 

Ghlan mi sibh aig uair sa mhadainn

An oidhch’ ud:

Beul ri dhùnadh

Gruag ri chìreadh

Ceann a chur dìreach

Deiseil airson ur turais a-nis.

Dìreach mar dh’iarradh sibh.

 

-Washing

 

I washed you that night

at 1am:

hands folded

eyes closed

legs straightened

head placed on pillow,

After you slowed to a whisper

Breath shortening; tiredness turns to peace.

 

I washed you that night

at 1am:

mouth closed

hair combed

head upright.

Ready for your journey now,

Just as you would have wanted.

 

 

Wigtown Scots Prize Winner | Robert Duncan,  Peeweep

 

Roun by the Swans’ Pond,

up ower the Tollie Hill,

ayont the piggery,

atween the tumshie fields,

throu the harebell wuids,

aa the wey tae the pit

he walkit the Peeweep Road

wi birdsang in his lugs.

 

‘Pi-rip, pee-weep,

‘pi-rip, pee-weep,

‘pi-rip, pee-weeep.’

Some fowk tweetiesheed it,

caaed it the Covenanters’ bane,

but tae him the peeweep’s sang

soundit like freedom’s cry,

‘Let’s flee awa,

let’s flee awa!’

 

Abune Loch Fitty Burn

the Peeweep Pit nestit

like a black craw on a hill.

Yin last keek at the lift

and the squad gat in the cage

cairryin the canary.

He thocht again what a bleck it was

that a bird cuid sing in a cage.

 

As they holit a seam

o Lochgelly parrot,

on a suddenty

the bird quat singin.

“Quick, boys, the bye-road

tae Lumphinnans Number Wan!”

 

Under the harebell wuids,

the tumshie fields,

the piggery,

the Tollie Hill,

the Swans’ Pond,

they bure the deid bird.

 

A mile abune their heids

the haill length o the road

the peeweeps sang.

 

 

Wigtown Scots Prize Runner-up | Lynn Valentine, Thi Loast Bairn

 

Thair ir meenits ma dochter wull wauk mi

in thi nicht wi hir girnin; a loup roon the room
an roon agin, girnin fir the mither wha couldnae

let hir see licht, couldnae let hir be born
Is this a tod then, a vixen circlin thi yaird?
A Reid Kite blawn aff coorse intae derkness?

A pit ma fist in ma moo tae stoap ma shriekin.

A wullnae blait like a sheepie fir a lamb—
wullnae own ma voice fir air thit’s ower shairp—
fir blank stanes aneath snaw.

 

 

Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize Winner | Jane McKie, Jawbreaker

(Title Poem)

 

A pile of dirty-cream clothes, lies in ribbons and folds –

what was her skin. She must be cold, but new, glistening

with possibility. I gather the rucked-up pelt, struck by its musk,

then find the furred mask of her cherished snout, the teeth 

huge and tipped with blood where, once upon a time,

she tore into me. My jawbreaker. I’ll soak them in a weak

solution of bleach, rinse them with care, in case she asks

to be clothed again in the disordered ways of a starving bear.

 

 

Dumfries & Galloway Fresh Voice Award Winner | Carolyn Yates, Gaze

(Title Poem)

 

She’s looking at you looking at her, the way

your eyes skitter over her face, locate

somewhere between belly and thigh.

 

She’s listening to your breath susurrating

tongue and palate, your mouth a puckering gasp.

She holds her Boadicea pose,

 

knows your discomfort, sees you shift your weight.

She stands astride an invisible tiger.

Her red-maned,  just -you- dare stare

 

skewers you through. There is nothing demure here,

no filmy gauze or seven veils conceit.

So hide that smile  when she bares her teeth, snarls

 

her pebble-spittle in your face, brings you down into disgrace.