To mark the centenary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s poem A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, Ayont the Thistle brings together more than 70 writers responding to its enduring provocations. These three excerpts offer a glimpse into how MacDiarmid’s work continues to inspire and  provoke new conversations about Scotland’s identity and literature.

Ayont the Thistle
By Jim Mackintosh, Alan Riach and James Robertson
Published by Tippermuir Books

Revolution and Renaissance
Bashabi Fraser

Here lochs which seeped in from the sea
lie in reflective reverie
belying their intensity.

The Donalds, Corbetts and Munros
contain the waters overflow,
stolid in their dignity.

The Tay and Clyde have borne
the tides of trade that transformed
the lives that thrived from global gains.

The gently rolling vast terrain
of the Lallans has sustained
their pensive fields and powerful clans.

While islands have floated free
building their own history,
protecting close communities.

But far below the bens and lochs,
the flowing tides and bustling docks
a revolution gathered steam –

For underneath the tethered land
a molten stream flowed undeterred
seething with a flaming dream

seeking fault-lines to emerge
in one interminable urge
to erupt when the time was right.

So it burst in glorious rage,
to douse past ills from history’s page
with its undeniable might –

flowing across the diverse streams
that in their depths have held bold dreams,
churned from wisdom and insight.

The bubbling lava flowed to greet
all country lanes and city streets
in a bid to unify

the Lowlands with the Highlands,
the mainland with the islands
to harmonise and clarify –

willing embers to ignite
a populace with a fresh light –
to renew a linguistic right.

Legacy
Charlie Gracie

Wur the poet tae never rise abune the station ae postie’s laddie…
And wur the star ae Rabbie eclipsed, no by Chesterton,
but, in his boyhood days, by John Tanner, herdsman,
who stuck a fit up his erse and knocked him aff his perch…

An wur a forebear ae mine, un-named an distant,
deid on arrival fae their mither’s hungry frame,
or shot through the heid by sumdy sumwheranither,
or kilt by black pit stoor wi a slow suffocation…

An wur the thistle even eclipsed in its evolution
by a bloatit hing that taen advantage merr ae the meagre grun,
and whas roots set thersels even firmer in this rough land
than yon straikit, high-heidit, purple ponce ae a flooer…

Nane ae this then but – ma hert daen its hing,
an yon wee smile ae yours in the saft smir ae the gairden.
Aye, the haurdly nuhin ae wur tiny lives anaw,
grandweans spinnin roon me, spinnin oot ae sicht.

Ah wish ah hud better news fur ye,
Hugh, drunk or sober
Lesley Benzie

Thon Spear Thistle, oor national flooer sine the Battle o Largs,
Norsess invaders steppin barefitit on’t yelpin in pain
alertin Scottish warriors fa thwarted their attack.

Noo, the thistle’s bonnie heid wi its purple plume
micht as weel be a croon o thorns, the cleave in oor psyche deep
as the rift, atween Henry VIII an Rome –
nivver theological, he jist wintit tae heid up the English kirk
tae rid himself o thon recurrent theme, a sonless queen.

His protestant supporters had ither intents an purposes.
An uner the wing o England’s successor King, Knox
ministered
tae the bitter seeds o Scottish Reformation takkin root agin
the Pope.
In his steid, saa his-sel as the uphuader o God’s laa
as he trumpeted his treatise spitin the woman Queen o Scotland.
Richt weel he executed his role in clearin anither ‘obstacle’
on the path tae a ‘Union’ that has buirit Scotland’s
Constitution
an the Claim of Right that protects it still in centuries ae
ignorance
an the barbs o history thit like thistle roots rin deep.
Sae deep, that some fowk tak it as gospel their souls will be saved
nae by their faith abandoned lang sine,

raither bi kings an queens fa cuidnae gie three flying ducks
plaistered across auld cooncil waas aboot thum.
Oor een shrooded in a flag that bequeaths an inferiority complex
lurkin aneth the sharp spines o oor flooers o Scotland.
Minds weel colonised, divided an ruled, fur sae lang, they
cairry defeat
like an honour in a jutted chin thit wuid argie an fecht jist kis…

A chip on oor shooder…bit nae sae muckle as monolithic
English myths
that ‘Union’ is tae oor benefit. That bein the case ah dinna ken foo
they dinna let us go an mak o it the affa sotter they aye predict?
Bit aye, 2014 cam an fell like a pall as it went,
fan we didna rise tae the occasion o self-determination,
betrayal oor only true religion.

Noo, we’re truly ‘United’ in a kingdom o stupidity,
suckin it up as the latest UK government doubles-doon on austerity,
tries tae oot-racist the ‘Reform’ pairty, wi its latest web o deceit,
ony notion o sovereignty.

In the pay o a parcel o Big Tech rogues, divide an distract
algorithms
promotin great replacement conspiracies, advocatin instead the
dissolution o Britain’s parliament, makkin o us the 51st state
on their road tae takkin ower the rest o the warld.

Aa the while, in Falkirk an Perth an aa the sma Scottish
run-doon toons,
far they wuid hardly ken an illegal migrant if they turnt up
in their haggis, neep an tatties – no, their chips wi curry
sauce…
they pay fur the privilege o bein shafted, buyin aa the twisted
lees
an furiously wavin their Union Jacks ootside hostels
tae beat their powerlessness intae those maest in need…

The demise o oor eence warm Scottish welcome, turnin us
intae the arse end o nae wye, oor national flooer hingin its heid
as its roots eence fu o possibilities ur pysoned.

Aye, ah wish ah hud better news fur ye, Hugh
drunk or sober…

Ayont the Thistle is published by Tippermuir Books, priced £11.99