Cabaret McGonagall.
Roy, G. Ross
It takes a brave man to use the name McGonagall in the title of a
poem, and a book, considering that Punch called William McGonagall (c.
1825-1902) "the greatest Bad Verse writer of his age." There
is a major difference, though, between W. N. Herbert's verse and
that of McGonagall: the latter took his absurdities absolutely
seriously, whereas Herbert knows better. His cabaret is the meeting
place for all the misfits of Scotland.
The present collection (Herbert's eighth) contains poems which
are serious and comic, in English and in Scots; it is divided into four
sections representing the points of the compass, enabling Herbert to
suggest universality, which he undercuts with subtitles such as
"Gone West" and "East of Auden." Not surprisingly to
a modem Scot, it is the NorthSouth axis which is the more important.
Herbert chronicles the decline of Scots when James VI became James I
of England in "Ballad of the King's New Dialect."
When Jamie ran to London toon tae tak up his new throne, he drapped
his pack o playin bards wi jist thi wan 'Ochone' [alas].
Fur he wiz noo thi Roses' king and spak thi Roses' speak,
and kent nae mair thi Thistle's leid than he did thon o thi Leek.
Herbert's poem becomes a mock ballad, the people of Scotland its
butt.
The poetry turns almost vicious in "The Postcards of
Scotland" where the author runs though a list of the absurd images
of his native land which are peddled to tourists. "Surely," he
laments, "those figures eating fried egg rolls/ . . . are the
philosophers of the Enlightenment / . . . Surely / Robert Burns is
buying a haggis" from a chip shop.
"The Ballad of Technofear" propels the poet into
cyberspace; a time will come he says when "naebody'll log in /
on Scotslit but the profs, / and at the first daimen icker / the
thrave'll be flogged off, / timor computeris conturbat me."
But of course he has beaten technology at its own game here by inserting
a phrase from Burns's "To a Mouse" and has also
incorporated the final line of each stanza of William Dunbar's
masterpiece, "Lament for the Makars." The line is repeated in
Dunbar; in Herbert there are variations such as "timor Microsoft
conturbat me."
The influence of Burns, seen now by many Scots as far too pervasive,
can be detected elsewhere in Herbert's poetry. "Lammer
Wine" (heather ale) is produced in the Standard Habbie stanza made
famous by Burns, and it even contains a stanza about him: "Gin [If]
Burns hud artely hud wan drink / his statues warld-wide at wan wink /
wad print oot rantin crambo-clink [doggerel] / in standirt habbie: / two
centuries wad turn delinq- / uent as deid Rabbie." It will not be
lost on aficionados that a McGonagallesque rhyme such as that in the
penultimate line is exactly what drove the Punch writer to despair.
There are other dimensions in this collection, to be sure. Herbert
can be self-deprecating ("The Ballad of Success"); he can
write playfully of love, but also with genuine tenderness. He can mock
Scots' pseudopiety, but also writes meaningfully about religion:
"Becoming Joseph is unbecoming Jesus. . . . / Becoming Joseph is
recoiling from AD to BC." In Cabaret McGonagall Herbert maintains
the high standards he has already established.
G. Ross Roy University of South Carolina
