Editorial: from the snack-bar to the mosh pit via Scholl’s Ferry Rd
1.
On 13 June 2025, a blog post appeared on the Scottish Poetry Library website and almost immediately gained traction on social media. It was shared widely, sometimes accompanied by comments of agreement or affirmation, but little in the way of debate or analysis took place around it. Entitled Challenging the language of ‘In the snack-bar’, the article is a j’accuse against Edwin Morgan’s poem of that title. The author, who I won’t name because this editorial is not an attack on them, finds Morgan’s use of language “ableist”, asks whether it’s appropriate that the poem is used in schools, throws in a smidgin of autobiographical detail to contextualise the piece as personally uncomfortable for them to read, suggests terminology that Morgan should have employed instead, makes an almost parenthetical reference to Marie Howe’s 2008 poem ‘The Star Market’, quotes Rachel Boast at length on the ignorance betrayed by able-bodied writers who depict disability as something tragic and demanding of pity, and ends with this paragraph:
‘In the snack-bar’ reflects and perpetuates this ignorance. It also seems unfair to Morgan to choose this poem. Why can’t we have the joy of ‘The Loch Ness Monster’s Song’? Morgan can do better and so can we.
‘The Loch Ness Monster’s Song’ is a throwaway bit of nonsense verse. It’s fun, but to suggest it better represents Morgan’s talents as a poet is ridiculous. But this is the least of the issues thrown up by an article that is cluttered, rushed in its execution, and far too short for the points it makes. Nothing is developed or discussed at length. Nuance is lacking. The author notes that the poem was written in 1964 but fails to engage with how different social attitudes were six decades ago; how different the use of language then; how Edwin Morgan wouldn’t have known what ableism is.
The word first appeared in print in 1986, twenty-two years after Morgan wrote ‘In the snack-bar’ and twenty-two years before Howe published ‘The Star Market’. It’s glaringly obvious that Morgan was working within contemporarily uncontroversual perameters while Howe was blatantly courting controversy, yet Morgan and Howe are weighed as equal in their transgressions.
Nor is any consideration given to the fact that Morgan’s piece is meant to be an uncomfortable read. For those unfamiliar with ‘In the snack-bar’, its able-bodied (another term Morgan wouldn’t have known) narrator assists a disabled man who is struggling to find an use the toilet at a snack-bar. Said narrator is basically Everyman: not a nurse, not a carer, not someone who has ever to provide assistance in such an intimate or potentially embarrassing scenario. Let me repeat that the poem was written in 1964. I was born in 1972; I grew up in a working class background surrounded by those of Morgan’s generation. Most blokes in 1964 wouldn’t have helped another man to use the toilet, let alone written about it. Morgan is to be applauded for this poem, not censured.
This is the quote from Rachel Boast used in the article. It’s from her introduction to the anthology Versus Versus: 100 Poems by Deaf, Disabled & Neurodivergent Poets (Bloodaxe, 2025).
There is little acknowledgement that prejudicial attitudes, flawed interpretations of value, eugenicist legacies…. are a key factor in what actually disables people, creating a vicious cycle, fuelled by pathos. Pathos arises out of a colossal misunderstanding. The narrative is so often that deafness, disability and neurodivergence has to be framed within a narrative of tragedy, that it merits an outpouring of pity, when the real tragedy is ignorance.
This is a good piece of writing, certainly one that shows up the deficiencies of the article it’s quoted in. But what’s that elision all about? A quick check of the anthology reveals that the missing text is “lack of access and provision, low income or no income”. An indication therefore that systemic failure is as much of a problem as prejudicial attitudes. This editing of Boast’s text is, to use a word I’ve come to greatly dislike, problematic.
There’s another term I hate: “do better”. The use of it at the end of blog post is as sniffy, judgemental and keening as anywhere else. It’s a millennial whine, the clarion call of the keyboard warrior eager to take offence on someone else’s behalf: do better, do better, do better. Take a look around: the world is going to hell, the population of Gaza are being bombed and starved out of existence, the Middle East situation is a heartbeat away from global conflict. Not to mention the comparatively minor but still debilitating realities of the cost of living crisis, cuts to welfare, and a recent Act of Parliament that basically encourages the poor and vulnerable towards state-approved suicide.
Do better? We’re all doing the best we can just to get through each day.
2.
Published in the July/August 2020 edition of Poetry, Michael Dickman’s highly accomplished poem ‘Scholl’s Ferry Rd’ tackled ageing, dementia and the generation gap using the perspective of a young woman witnessing her beloved grandmother’s regression and struggling to square the circle of the old lady’s outdated social attitudes. Employing negative space to excellent effect as the gaps in her memory become larger, ‘Scholl’s Ferry Rd’ delivers its emotional truths in a manner that is sad, painfully honest and often depressing. Not least when the grandmother expounds on race. Like ‘In the snack-bar’, it’s meant to be an uncomfortable read.
Predictably, it took just one tweet. One tweet that was then whipped up into a so-called “Twitter-storm”. Editor Don Share put out a mealy-mouthed apology which only incensed the keyboard warriors further. The Poetry Foundation – under whose aegis Poetry is published – had the issue pulped. That wasn’t enough for the mob. Share was ultimately forced to resign.
I’m not a fan of Poetry – it was a meek, simpering periodical even before the ‘Scholl’s Ferry Rd’ controversy – and Share’s moral cowardice in not standing by his decision to publish it (indeed, being complicit in its disappearance from both print and digital media) is contemptible. But I would not have had him forced to step down from his role or an issue he produced be wiped from the archives. Such stuff is in the arena of authoritarianism.
This tendency towards manufactured outrage, no-platforming and cancel culture within the poetry world – indeed, within any branch of the arts – is not only disingenuous but dangerous. It is self-defeating, engendering divisions which makes easier the work of political movements and those in the mainstream media for whom free thought, artistic self-expression and effective protest are anathema. Cancel culture, in particular, is the means by which the woke brigade risk handing victory to the far right.
3.
On 28 June 2025, the BBC announced that they would not be live-streaming Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap’s set from Glastonbury, despite it being the biggest draw at the festival. Instead, it would be available on-demand later that day via IPlayer.
With complete hour-long sets by John Fogerty, Pulp, Supergrass, Charli xcx and others freely available on said platform, Kneecap’s Glastonbury appearance was, for twenty-four hours, represented by just one song clocking in at three minutes. It was only after the news broke that a supposed “terrorism” charge had been dropped against a member of the band that the Corporation deigned to make the footage available. And it’s incendiary stuff all right. John Fogerty might have raged against “fucking lawyers” and Charli xcx raised the already sweltering temperatures, but neither of them played to a sea of Palestinian flags or lead chants of “fuck Keir Starmer”.
The BBC have form in entertaining certain agendas, from reversing the order of footage shot at Orgreave to portray the flying pickets as aggressors rather than victims to giving Nigel Farage more exposure on Question Time than any other politician. All the while hiding behind the cosy image of “Auntie Beeb”.
And they’re just the tip of the iceberg. What’s for sure is that there are plenty of bastards out there who want to censor artists and activists; who would happily put a gag on free speech. Who are probably laughing like hell every time one poet cancels another, every time one voice calls for another to be silenced because of an imagined offence, a absent-minded choice of phrase, the wrong pronoun …
And every time those of us who should be fighting the good fight get caught up in this kind of thing (mea culpa on the length of this editorial, by the way) we essentially do their job for them. We shouldn’t.
This is no time for us to be shutting each other down.
Neil Fulwood
July 2025
CODA: BBC Bitesize Revision page for the poem.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zvyqtfr/revision/1