The Keelie Hawk: Poems in Scots

by Kathleen Jamie

The Keelie Hawk is a landmark collection from Kathleen Jamie, the current Makar (National Poet) of Scotland. For the first time, Kathleen Jamie has brought her astonishing lyric talent to the language of her homeland, with outstanding results. The Keelie Hawk is a deeply resonant collection written in Scots, with each poem accompanied by a translation into English. Its publication is a significant event in Scottish literature, not only a reclaiming by one of our finest poets of the mouth-music of literary Scots, but a furthering of that ‘by making poems, a language develops’, Jamie observes in a fascinating afterword.

Genres: Poetry, Nature

112 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 26, 2024

About the author

Kathleen Jamie is a poet, essayist and travel writer, one of a remarkable clutch of Scottish writers picked out in 1994 as the ‘new generation poets’ – it was a marketing ploy at the time but turns out to have been a very prescient selection. She became Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Stirling in 2011.

http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org....

Reviews

[Jack Deighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

In her afterword, Jamie, a former Scottish Makar, says these 43 poems are her effort at a literary, lyrical Scots. The poems are mostly quite short (none strays over more than three, sparsely covered, pages) but pack a punch. Each is provided with a translation into English on the lower part of the even numbered pages opposite them. Those English versions tend to seem insipid when set beside the more vigorous originals. Jamie thinks that has something to do with the vowel sounds. For myself I think Scots, as a language - which it still is, however neglected since its heyday as one of the great languages of mediæval Europe - tends to be more earthy, rooted as it was in the land. Also, its consonants are more to the fore.
Four of the works here are Scots versions of poems by others, two by Friedrich Hölderlin (tailored from the English translations of Michael Hamburger) and two by Uyghur writer Chemengül Awut (now sadly disappeared into a re-education camp) translated into English by Munawwar Abdulla. Jamie has adapted Hölderlin poems before.
Jamie had initially envisaged this publication as a pamphlet but her editor at Picador saw no reason why a major London publishing house shouldn’t publish a whole book of poems in Scots, so she “scrievit some mair.”
I’m glad she did. They’re worth reading.

[Richard Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magical. This is high praise from me given I don't read that much poetry, (I often find too much that is impenetrable, and much that is too hard work for my liking), but perhaps this volume will change my mind. To add to this, this book is not written in English, but in Scots.

I found this volume in my local bookshop, and inspired by Jamie's book Cairn which I loved, I thought I would given this a go.

For the uninitiated Scots is a language spoken in parts of Scotland that is somewhat similar to English. I should stress this isn't Gaelic, which I would have no chance of reading. Keelie claims Scots is a language. I'm not going to enter the language versus dialect debate as I'm really not educated to do so. All I would say to anyone unfamiliar with Scots, is that if you speak English, you should be able to manage if you are willing to try. This is helped by the fact that every poem has a translation into standard English. The way Keelie writes Scots is a rather beautiful sounding language. And if you have travelled about Scotland, particularly rural Scotland, then you will know how it sounds.

Reading these works reminds me of trying to read old English, there are echoes of familiarity with the language I know, but much that is different. Although this is a living language, it feels old and resonates with my image of the land. There are many words that are exactly the same as in English, but a lot that is different. Those differences seem to fall into 3 broad categories to me.

Firstly, there are those that if one gets into the rhythm and sound of the language one can understand even if at first they look totally alien - for example "Hied doon nae more" is for an English speaker "Head down no more". (Perhaps my 6 years in Scotland as a child help me here). There are words which are different, but intelligible - such as the lovely word "forenoon" for morning. Then there are words which are just foreign to the English speaker - for example the names of trees and birds are often completely different, including the eponymous "Keelie Hawk" of the title.

If this sounds like hard work, I didn't find it so. There is a joy in reading the poems, even if one does not fully understand them. The rhythm and sound is wonderful. When one does understand, they often have a haunting melancholy, interspersed with moments of beauty and joy. Perhaps I really will start reading more poetry.

[Evelyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

These poems are an attempt to preserve Scots, a language that is in the process of being lost as English has become the dominant language in Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom. By providing English translations the author hopes to encourage others to learn and use the language. Unfortunately it doesn’t work for the general reader since the poems as viewed through the prose translations are pedestrian despite the author’s valiant attempt to convey her awe of the natural world.

[Karen Mace · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of nature poetry, in both Scottish and English languages! It's my first time seeing things written in Scots but I really enjoyed seeing how much I could pick up, thanks to the English translation that follows. The language used was really enchanting as the poet muses on nature themes, and that was wonderful to see how just a few lines can evoke such feelings and emotions.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

this audiobook narrator has such a soothing Scots accent that it was perfect for trying to drift off to sleep to.
when I was trying to pay attention to the content I was often puzzled by the vocab but liked the descriptions in the poems.

[Thisisnotmarta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Encántame como a natureza é o centro da reflexión poética. O epílogo pon en valor todo o libro.

[Giles Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spine-chillingly beautiful meditations on mortality, mass extinction, and the things that make life worth living: these are poems to read and mouth over and over again. Stunning work.

[Hannah Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my new favorite poet, poetry collection, and Maspie Den and Joys o Spring might be my two new favorite poems. I can not express how much these poems reached my deep soul- PRETENTIOUS SOUNDING I KNOW but it is an experience I’ve had with a piece of literature only once before and it was Gilead and y’all already KNOW how I feel about that book.