Scots Poet Len Pennie

I attended a talk last week by the Scots poet Len Pennie at Dreamworks Bookshop Milngavie

Pennie’s poems have more lilting lyrical musicality than her English poetry. Her poems pack immediate emotional directness and punch. She says it was all the grandmothers who kept the Scots voices and language alive. 

 

Welsh Labour are proud of Welsh Gaelic and the Welsh flag. We cannot say the same of Scottish labour, would they stand in front of the saltire and speak in Scots Gaelic or Scots? There’s been a long story of religious divisions in Scotland – the divide and rule tactic of the empire elites.

 

She suffered dreadful trolling online abuse. For many years the Scots language has been treated as a ‘pretendy language’ and oddly often by hostile Scots, it’s a centuries old saga. Yet Scots have been historically influenced by their connections and trade to Flanders and Ireland. 

II  Back when James VI held a clan gathering on Iona, he insisted that the clans had their eldest son educated in England, and taught to speak ‘correct English’. This practice continues to this day, with the private school accents. All the assimilation, repression of cultural difference. In the 20^thcentury English managers and middle class professionals came to Scotland – and Scots speaking workers were treated as second class citizens in their own country.