Send a card home

  Varje år producerar The Scottish Poetry Library en uppsättning diktvykort för National Poetry Day. De distribueras till deltagande offentliga bibliotek och skolor och andra platser runt Skottland. De är gratis för läsarna. National Poetry Day infaller i oktober, alltså inte i april då vi har Världspoesidagen och amerikanerna firar National Poetry Month.

Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh

  För varje år väljer man ett nytt tema. I kväll redovisar jag tre vykort från 2010, då temat var "Home".

Hamish Maclaren (1901 - 1987)
"Little Sea House"
(from Sailor with Banjo. Entertainment in rhyme and song. London : Victor Gollancz, 1929.)

Little sea house,
       when I found you,
the yellow poppies
       were nodding round you.

Your blue slate hat
       that the four winds
came to tug at
       over the tamarinds:

I remember it well:
       the salmon-nets drying –
laugh, violin-shell,
       and cease crying!

For I will return,
       through the sea-haze:
I am sailing back there
       always, always.

***

George Mackay Brown (1921 - 1996)
"The finished house"
(from The collected poems of George Mackay Brown. London : John Murray, 2005.)

In the finished house a flame is brought to the hearth. 
Then a table, between door and window 
Where a stranger will eat before the men of the house. 
A bed is laid in a secret corner 
For the three agonies – love, birth, death – 
That are made beautiful with ceremony. 
The neighbours come with gifts – 
A set of cups, a calendar, some chairs. 
A fiddle is hung at the wall. 
A girl puts lucky salt in a dish. 
The cupboard will have its loaf and bottle, come winter. 
On the seventh morning 
One spills water of blessing over the threshold.

***

Carol Ann Duffy (b. 1955)
"Safe sounds"
(from New and collected poems for children. London : Faber and Faber, 2009.)

You like safe sounds: 
the dogs lapping at their bowls; 
the pop of a cork on a bottle of plonk 
as your mother cooks; 
the Match of the Day theme tune 
and Doctor Who-oo-oo.

                               Safe sounds: 
your name called, two happy syllables 
from the bottom to the top of the house; 
your daft ring tone; the low gargle 
of hot water in bubbles. Half asleep 
in the drifting boat of your bed, 
you like to hear the big trees 
sound like the sea instead.