The Collected Poems.

Roy, G. Ross

Alexander Scott (1920-89) was a prominent member of the first generation of Scottish poets who followed Hugh MacDiarmid's lead into the Scottish Renaissance. Born and educated in Aberdeen, Scott did almost all his teaching at the University of Glasgow, where he headed the Department of Scottish literature from its founding until his retirement. In this role he played a major part in training two generations of students, many of whom entered university totally ignorant of the literature of their land. That Scottish studies are now flourishing in Scotland is due in large measure to the dedication of this poet and teacher.

When he died, Scott was working on an edition of his poetry to be called Incantations: Poems and Diversions. Some poems had already been published; others were to appear for the first time. The author had kept notebooks from an early date, according to David Robb, he would go back through these when preparing a selection, and "in many instances he took the opportunity to substantially revise the earlier work." The editor points out that had Scott lived to see his own collection through the press, it would probably not have been the same as this volume.

In the early days of publishing Scott looked upon himself more as a dramatist than as a poet; his first booklet was a play, Prometheus 48 (1948), and four years later he produced Untrue Thomas, a play based on the legend and ballad "Thomas Rhymer." Those plays in blank verse have not been drawn upon in this edition, although a short poem, "Untrue Tammas" is here. The arrangement of the material is strictly chronological, which allows the reader to follow the development of Scott's concerns and art. Looking through this collection, the reader is struck by what Norman MacCaig has called Scott's "spirited gusto"; there is also a great enthusiasm for satire, which he handles with rapierlike effectiveness.

Most of the writers of the Scottish Renaissance knew one another, and we find poems, quite often elegies, by Scott to several of them; Sydney Goodsir Smith, Douglas Young, Norman MacCaig, and Edwin Morgan, to name but a few. Important among the names is that of William Soutar, because Scott edited Soutar's Diaries of a Dying Man and wrote a biography of him (still Life) which remains the standard study. Earlier writers are also the subjects of poems: Bums, Fergusson, Byron (who, like Scott, spent his youth in Aberdeen).

We are not surprised to find Hugh MacDiarmid in the group. In my opinion, the best of all of Scott's panegyrics is "The Gallus Makar" (gallus = recklessly brave), with its extended comment upon MacDiarmid's famous epigram "The Little White Rose" ("That smells sharp and sweet -- and breaks the heart"). Scott neatly encapsulates MacDiarmid's creation of a new age in Scottish poetry. He shifted a haill yearhunder's wecht / Wi ae yark o his tongue, (yark = jerk). The Latest in Elegies (1949) has a poem, "The Rescue," which is dedicated to MacDiarmid but which appears in Collected Poems revised and with the dedication removed, for reasons not explained. Scott's friendship with and admiration for the older poet remained constant.

A vacation with his wife Cath in Greece in 1970 produced what Scott told me was a whole new poetic vision and output, the immediate result of which was Greek Fire (1971); the couple returned several times to Greece, and poems on the theme continued to be written. Some of them are love poems, some praise the country, some, like "Bad Taste" show the satiric wit unabated: "They say that Socrates drank. I He took hemlock. // Anything, anything / rather than retsina."

The wittiest sustained group of poems, "Scotched" produced at various times but gathered together in this volume, consists of forty-four two-liners on the poet's native land.

Scotch Education

I tellt ye

I tellt ye.

Scotch Prostitution

Dear,

Dear.

Scotch Optimism

Through a gless,

Darkly.

Scotch Pessimism

Nae

Gless.

Scotch Gaeldom

Up the

Erse.

And more of the same!

There is one thing which has puzzled me about Scott. I knew Alex well (was his houseguest during a six-month sabbatical) and can testify that World War II was very often on his mind -- he was wounded and decorated for gallantry. And yet there are few poems devoted to the topic; the few there are, however, strike home. "Coronach, (Lament), written 6 June 1946, is dedicated to the dead of the Gordon Highlanders, with whom Scott served. The fallen address the poet thus:

'Makar [poet], frae nou ye maun [must]

Be singan for us deid men,

Sing til [to] the warld we loo'd [loved]

(For aa that its brichtness lee'd [lied])

and tell hou the sudden nicht

Cam doun and made us nocht.'

Alexander Scott's place among the Scottish poets is secure. Ave atque vale!