A word on the title. Airtins doesn’t mean metallic food or drink containers which have become airborne or – emptied of their contents – now hold only air. Airtins is a Scots word that, as Hershaw explains in the introduction, has various meanings, depending on context. But for the sake of this review let’s go with “directions”.
A word on the subtitle: the Tao Te Ching is a philosophical work credited to the sage Lao Tzu and thought to have been written in 400BC. It’s still in print, which is enough to make any writer weep whose works have gone out of print within their own lifetime. The Tao Te Ching, sometimes known as The Book of the Way to Virtue (or often just The Book of the Way), sets out a way of living predicated upon being in harmony with the world around you; basically, to use a somewhat mopey turn of phrase, going with the flow.
Hershaw is pragmatic enough to acknowledge that Lao Tzu’s placid, harmonious, non-confrontational philosophy is sometimes finer in theory than the flawed reality of the world allows for in practice: “his famous line about if in doubt, do nothing doesn’t work if you are dealing with Nazis, for instance.” Still, in these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha (to quote Tom Lehrer), it might make for a less corrosive and combative socio-political environment if more people had a crack at living the Lao Tzu way.
Hershaw’s introduction economically establishes a Venn diagram between the Tao Te Ching, socialism and the Scots language (and by extension the Scots character). The poems in Airtins divide into four sections, the first of which translates (or “owersets” as Hershaw puts it) Lao Tzu’s verse into Scots. The second takes his work as inspiration, while the third returns to the idea of owersetting in its presentation of an ironically Scots-ified (yes, I know there’s no such word) sequence of Tzu’s epigrams. The final section is a sequence of poets that are specifically Scottish – both in their language and geography – which nonetheless filter national heritage and their author’s lived experience through the prism of the Tao.
It’s a chunky (96 page), ambitious, passionate and politically acute collection. Its poetics are sound, its craftsmanship excellent, and it brilliantly achieves everything it sets out to do. And one of the key things it sets out to do is revel joyously in the music and meaning of the Scots language.
So does this pose an issue for the non-Scots reader? Personally, I don’t think so. Kneecap rack up the downloads and sell out stadium concerts while rapping primarily in the Irish language with the odd line in English, and if you’re perfectly happy with:
Focain caite amach arís
Barraíocht piontaí le barraíocht snaois
Equals a cocktail brave for unleashin’ the beast
Oíche mhór amach fuinne, at least
then you probably won’t have a problem with:
England tae the fore,
Scotland shoved ahint,
Ireland made tae thole
England’s colours. Wales no there.
[‘Flag o a Deean Empire’]
“Tae” obviously meaning “to”, the first line is easy to comprehend. A helpful glossary (every single poem in the book comes complete with one) tells you that “ahint” means “behind” (though the clue’s there: hint/hind), so that’s the second line sorted. Quick gander at the glossary: “thole” means “wear”. That’s only two words from the quatrain that the reader might need help with.
I surprised myself, the further I got into the collection, with how little I came to rely on the glossaries. Many of the poems open up more or less immediately when recited aloud, or when read from the page with a Scots accent in one’s head (I imagined Kevin Bridges reading them). Take the title of the poem quoted above: “Deean” might look like a misspelling of the name “Deanne”, but vocalise it and it’s obvious: dying. Flag of a dying empire.
Take ‘The People’s Leaders’, which I’ll quote in full (and I can guarantee you this was harder for me to type, on account of autocorrect being vaguely racist, than it is for you to read):
The first sold out the Miners:
No a meinit on the day,
no a penny aff the pey.
The second sained a kintrae:
biggit a Health Service
fae the bombsite bricks.
A pawky Huddersfield Buddha:
his Univairsity o Air
meant the young micht flee conscription.
The Keeper o the Cloth bunnet
let us in for sandwiches and beer –
mind, turn tae the richt when you’re leaving here.
This Squealer loued his ain sweit vyce,
tellt lees o mass destruction.
Refused tae unknot the previous tyrant’s noose.
Mair vauntie than Macbeth,
he sat on his hands as the Chancellor
yet was feart tae gae tae the fowk.
Puir corbie got nae cheese.
Ower honest by faur: whit micht hae been,
gin his ain hadnae shot him doun?
He outlaws protest,
sells weapons of genocide
while auld fowk shiver.
How many words did you stumble on? How many of the character sketches did you identify? I’m betting all of them. I’m betting as well that you were smiling ruefully or nodding grimly from stanza to stanza. And I’m pretty confident that your favourite Scottish actor, singer or comedian’s voice was ringing in your head by the time you got to the end.
It’d be a very stubborn or xenophobic reader, I think, who didn’t reach the end of Airtins (by way of a wonderfully fluent addition to the canon of river poetry) without finding themselves in touch with their inner Scot.
Neil Fulwood