Page 42 - Art First: Helen MacAlister: The Glamour of Backwardness

AF HM catalogue 2023 PRINT.qxp_Layout 1 15/06/2023 17:37 Page 40

Bon-accord
bon-accord–amity, agreement; the city of Aberdeen; that city’s motto

‘The northeast has been described as ‘the cold shoulder’ of Britain.’ 1

‘One of their number, Maighread Ni Lachainn (c.1660–1751) in Mull, was said to ‘see’ her poetry
running along the tops of the wall inside the house (the allusion is probably to castles or chiefs’
houses). The explanation may be that carvings or wall-hangings depicting scenes of warfare and
hunting helped to stimulate her imagination.’ 2

Thus an, ‘imaginative identification.’ 3

1 The Ballad and the Folk –David Buchan, p13
2 Scottish Life & Society–Oral Literature & performance culture, vol 10, p.89
[John MacInnes–Gaelic panegyric verse]
3 Robert Crawford

Gorse (illustrated opposite)
Scots has “a consonant system in which high-energy consonants– plosives and fricatives,
of the voiced and voiceless varieties–appear in abundance, both singly and in clusters.” 1

Gorse : has pods which open explosively.

1 Gaelic and Scots in Harmony: edited by Derick Thomson– (Douglas Young and Sorley MacLean

–J. Derrick McClure) p137

Saxifrage
“In his long poem The Muir, Garioch clambers about the peaks of speculation, reflecting on the nature
of perception and the metaphysics of atomic theory. Like MacDiarmid, he relies here on the spark

struck when Scots, with its tough precision about things touched and seen, bangs against the abstract.” 1

Scots : sap rises and splits rock (saxifrage).

1 7 poets – neal ascherson p27 (on robert garioch)