Liz Lochhead, me, and the power of poetry | Kevin McKenna

Some of we fey idealists believe that a nation may only be considered healthy if it properly fosters culture and the arts. Events thus far in January have helped lift the mantilla of despondency that seemed to settle after a particularly brutal December. Scottish Opera's immediate financial future has been secured and The King's Speech, the finest British film since Trainspotting, is now on general release. In Suffolk, Dani Filth, singer in the esteemed black metal band, Cradle of Filth, came top of a poll to find that county's most popular person.Yet the appointment of Liz Lochhead as Scotland's new Makar or poet laureate eclipses even these landmark events. Ms Lochhead is a beautiful, sensitive and brilliant lady whose poetry has enchanted Scotland for three decades. Pleasingly, Ms Lochhead has stated her intention not to be constrained by form and procedure when she fulfils her duties as Makar. And so, her verse can provide a living and vibrant commentary on the state of the nation during her tenure. During this period, the country's political and economic landscape will change utterly and I would hope, without politicising the post too much, that she may choose to shine a light on those communities that will be most blighted by the government's cuts.Yet there is a still more important function that Ms Lochhead can perform for the nation. The Makar was once a sacred office in Scotland's literary landscape. It stretched back to the 14th century and the early Makars helped give the Scots language in all its forms a distinctiveness and sophistication that ensured it would never lose touch with all the important literary developments of the Renaissance. Our new Makar has a unique opportunity now to revive the sanctity of that post and use it to leave a literary legacy to Scotland.To all her other qualities, I feel that Ms Lochhead may also be a formidable lady who may brook little compromise and who may not gladly suffer bampots. Could she help effect a change in how literature and language are ! taught i n Scotland? In many schools serving benighted communities, the beauty and the versatility of verse could unlock the imaginations of children better than works of seemingly endless prose. If a child with other things on his mind discovers that a poem of four stanzas can achieve as much as a 200-page book it can be a liberation.In the TV documentary housing estates, the common refrain that regularly resonates after a certain hour has passed is: "Where's makar?" Ms Lochhead can now reply sweetly: "Here I am, boys and girls."To illustrate the state of Scottish education, and in a spirit of poetic fraternity, I offer Ms Lochhead some words of my own just to get her into the swing of things, you understand.

The Last Hypermarket

On a windswept urban brae it sat, lonely and all-seeing,
a little urban watchtower where you could see the jakeys peeing
it used to sell sturdy comestibles like a mince round
now it's only recycled lavvy paper; three for a pound
Sweet hypermarket often have I missed it
Perhaps it should
have
been
... listed.