Glasgow

[108 fountains]

Glasgow

I’ve seen the dark, cramped places
And the tarnished scowling faces
Of the grimy city of Glasgow
On the dirty banks of the Clyde
Where from great smokestacks,
Black clouds blow,
And within dark corners,
Poverty and diseases hide.
Where the people know that Scotland
Is not just moors and highlands,
Lochs and dales, hills and vales,
Where few of them have ever seen a glen
Or if they have, they can’t remember when.

MacPherson from the shipyards meets
MacFadden from the mines.
They have a little ale
And retell a few old tales.
They discuss over a bite to eat
The condition of the Scottish steel industry
And the plight of the Scottish fleet.
They remember the times
When things were different;
When wherever you went
You could smell the salty brine
Instead of dust from the iron ore mines;
When you proudly belonged to your family clan;
When a man could call himself a man.
MacPherson and MacFadden say their good-byes,
Leave the inn, and go their separate ways
Heading for home where in the dark they’ll lie
Before the factory whistle sounds another day.

As MacDonald rolls the steel
Into sheets, bars, and plates,
His mind wanders northward
From the factory and the job he hates.

Northward across the River Clyde
To that fabled land on the other side.
The heather grows green near Loch Lomond,
And sheep graze openly on the hills beyond.
In the mountains are found the glens
Made merry with the music of chirping wrens.
Far in the distance a castle stands
Guarding the enchanted Scottish lands.
The sun sets peacefully behind the trees
In a leafy green and orange light.
And if you’re quiet and listen on the breeze,
You’ll hear the Lady of the Lake
Singing softly to the night.
And in the valleys and in the dales
Sing robins and doves and jays and quail.

But MacDonald doesn’t hear the melodious tunes
Because the factory whistle is sounding noon.
In the Southwest, the heather doesn’t grow,
And smoky skies cover the rainbow.
The colorful kilts are never worn,
And a lifetime sometimes seems too long
In the dark, cramped places
And the tarnished, scowling faces
Of the Grimy city of Glasgow
On the dirty banks of the Clyde.

[blank|verse]

This is a decent effort for one of your first posts, 108 fountains. It’s strikingly Romantic in its portrayal of urban industry workers being cut off from the natural environment; poems like William Blake’s ‘London’, and William Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey’ are brought to mind.

I think this is also where the poem, and perhaps any poetry you write in future, could be improved though – the theme strikes me as being something I’d associate with poetry from a couple of hundred years ago. The characters, all of whose names start with ‘Mac’, seem to be somewhat caricatured, and the argument of the poem a little too black and white, too two dimensional. The narrative voice of the poem also seems to belong to a different age. And it’s an argument that has been rehearsed many times before, so if you’re to attempt the same thing successfully, you need to give the reader something new that he or she hasn’t read before. The Scottish countryside seems to be overly romanticised as well; I’m sure there’s plenty of poverty and suffering in the rural areas similar to that you discuss in the cities like Glasgow. (And last time I went to Glasgow a couple of years ago, I thought it was very nice, and certainly didn’t notice any ‘smoky skies’ covering rainbows or such like; there are problem areas for sure, but show me a city that doesn’t have them.)

The poem's other noticeable feature is the use of irregular rhyme. If I’m honest, I found these lines quite distracting and thought few of them worked successfully; for example, this couplet in particular is a bit bathetic:

Where few of them have ever seen a glen
Or if they have, they can’t remember when.

Rhyme, particularly full rhyme, is used to suggest harmony and that everything is right in the world; and while, it could be argued, you could use it here as a jarring counterpoint to the content of the poem, it doesn’t read like that’s the intention, more that you chanced upon a couplet here and there and couldn’t make the whole poem rhyme, which suggests a lack of control on the poet’s part.

Still, as I said, it’s a decent effort. I wonder how much contemporary poetry you read. If you’re keen on improving your poetry, I would strongly advise you to read more poetry that has been written in, say, the last 20 years. Maybe you’d like the poetry of Seamus Heaney, or of contemporary Scottish poets like Don Paterson (here’s a link to his poem ‘Luing’ (http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do;jsessionid=C15807FC2AD7BFD7640290589 E6CC7A2?poemId=6174)), Robin Robertson, John Burnside and Kathleen Jamie. George Mackay Brown’s ‘Hamnavoe’ (http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=1540)might also appeal.

[dara.cv]

^ can't give a more concise and well-thought review than that.

[108 fountains]

Thanks, Blank Verse, for the thoughtful constructive criticism. You are correct on several accounts. I don’t read much contemporary poetry, so it’s no surprised that mine sounds a bit antiquated. Also, I have been to Glasgow/Scotland only once, and I don’t care to admit how many years ago that was. I recently completed reading some works by Sir Walter Scott (Rob Roy and Ivanhoe), and that brought back memories of my visit to Scotland, which was the impetus for the poem. So between reading old fiction, not reading contemporary poetry, and basing it all on old memories, yes, I’m sure the sentiments are a bit outdated.

The rhyming is a good point, too. My original draft had regular rhyming, but some of the lines just didn’t work (such as the one you quoted above), so I changed some of those lines, resulting in places where the rhymes were irregular. I could have worked harder on finding rhymes that did work.

What I appreciate most is the time you spent reading it, thinking about it, and then offering constructive criticism. As you mentioned, I’m new as a regular visitor to the forums, and I’ve tried to find the time to offer comments on other people’s writings as well as posting my own, so I know that posting considered comments is a time-consuming task. So, I do appreciate that, and feel privileged that you thought my attempt was worth commenting on. I read the poems that you posted links to and enjoyed both of them. Both of them contain imagery that really evokes a kind of picture I have in my mind about Scotland – sort of cold and dreary and windswept, yet full of warmth of feeling and romanticism.

Poetry isn’t really my strong point (I think I do better at short stories), but if I set something down that I think might be of interest here, I’ll go ahead and post it.

[blank|verse]

Thanks for such a thoughtful and gracious response, 108 fountains. And you're right, it is time-consuming, writing critiques of people's work, but it's good to know you've got an open-minded and positive attitude towards constructive criticism, and I'm sure you'll develop and improve as a writer, in whatever form it takes.

[Jerrybaldy]

It's all been said above but just wanted to let you know I greatly enjoyed your post.