Jim Naughtie guest edits modern Scots poetry compilation in honour of Robert Burns

A poem about the female ‘Moon’ contemplating a relationship with a spaceman, an ode commissioned for the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn and a love poem by Scotland’s first Makar have been chosen for a special Burns Night online anthology.

The late Edwin Morgan, pictured in his Glasgow home, is one of the poets whose work is included. Picture: Robert Perry

Former Scotsman journalist and broadcaster James Naughtie has teamed up with the Scottish Poetry Library (SPL) in Edinburgh to guest edit a volume of the ‘best of the best’ Scottish poems of the past 15 years.

The anthology went live just after midnight today .

The SPL published its first online anthology in 2004 with guest editors over the years including novelist Janice Galloway, poet Alan Spence and Roddy Woomble, lead vocalist of indie rock band Idlewild.

Naughtie read all the annual anthologies, whittling 300 poems down to 20 and gives an introduction and comments on each one.

“They’re a rich harvest, bursting with life,” Naughtie said.

“Picking the best of them was difficult, naturally, and involved hairbreadth decisions, but I’m happy that this crop represents the range and depth of our poetry. Anyone worrying about the state of it will just have to read these poems, rest easy and then read them again. They all deserve a long life.”

Naughtie will talk about how he chose the poems at a special event on 30 March at Glasgow’s literary festival ‘Aye Write!’.

Colin Waters, communication manager at the SPL, said the anthology had many parallels with Burns’ life.

”We’re publishing the Best of the Best Scottish Poems on Burns Night because we view the poems collected in the anthology as very much part of the long and colourful history of Scottish poetry that Burns embodied through his life and work.

“So many of the poems included in the collection contain echoes of the bard’s work. So Edwin Morgan’s ‘Love’, a beautiful poem as much about love itself as a loved one, reminds one of Burns’ own passionate love poems, while Claire Askew’s ‘I am the moon, and you are the man on me’ has a playful sensuality I imagine he’d enjoy. Kathleen Jamie’s ‘Here Lies Our Land’, commissioned for the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn, with its insistence that Scotland belongs to all of its people, points us in the direction of Burns’ political poetry and his insistence that ‘a man’s a man for a’ that’.

“Someone asked me last week whether Burns wasn’t a little ‘problematic’, particularly his attitude to women and sex.

“We’re not blind to that, and with the collection including strong contributions by, amongst others, Liz Lochhead, JL Williams, Katie Ailes and Jen Hadfield, we can see contemporary Scottish poetry is at least trying to expand the voices it showcases.”