How a Scottish Poet Found His Voice in Rotterdam

In June 1978, Sorley MacLean stood in front of an audience in Rotterdam at Poetry International, a festival that brought poets from twenty countries together. On June 15th, the fourth day of the festival, the concert hall filled with many different languages—Catalan, Turkish, Flemish, Hebrew, Japanese—each one sounding different from the others. When MacLean spoke in Scottish Gaelic, a critic named Vera Illès heard something special in his voice. It sounded measured and ancient, as if it came from deep in time.

Illès wrote a review of the evening for NRC Handelsblad. She noted that the festival presenters had made jokes about the event, and one of them, Remco Campert, had been "far from impeccable" but had handled his mistakes with charm. What made the evening work, though, was the mix of all the different languages. "One of the attractions of this annually recurring and increasingly convivial festival is the whirling alternation of different languages, which together form a feast of sound," she wrote.

Illès thought carefully about what happens when we hear poetry in a language we cannot understand. "If poetry is concentrated language, then poetry in a language we cannot follow word by word is concentrated sound, in which a language presents itself at its most beautiful." She described the different languages she had heard that evening: the babbling Turkish, the staccato American, the rhythmic and surprisingly soft Japanese, and MacLean's measured, oracle-like Gaelic. His language was not exotic or foreign—it was ancient and oracular, carrying the weight of centuries.

Two weeks after the festival ended, on July 29th, a newspaper called De waarheid published an interview with MacLean. The interviewer began by praising the beauty of Gaelic itself, calling it "one of the most beautiful and sonorous languages spoken by humans."

MacLean explained why he wrote in Gaelic simply: "Because it is my first language. The language I learned at home. It is the language of the people I belong to." He was not trying to preserve a dead language. About eighty thousand people spoke Scottish Gaelic, and more were learning it. The language was endangered, but it was alive.

When asked what he thought was important in poetry, MacLean spoke about mixing different kinds of writing. "I love poetry that is lyrical; I love poetry that is a medley—perhaps a philosophical medley—bursting into lyricism. And that goes back in time." He believed poetry could hold both thought and emotion, both the present moment and history. He described himself as someone who cared deeply about social issues. "I do not say that you must be socially engaged. But for me it is very important to be."

To explain what he meant, MacLean quoted the Romantic poet John Keats. "For me the ideal is what Keats, a Romantic poet from the previous century, said about the highest kind of poetry: 'None approach here but those to whom the miseries of the world are miseries and will not let them rest.'" For MacLean, poetry was not decoration. It was a response to suffering in the world.

The interviewer noted that MacLean's own poems showed this commitment. He had written about the Second World War, when he had fought in the English army in Africa, about fascism, and about the lives of ordinary Scottish people. Yet this focus on his own community created a problem. "Many poets everywhere in the world face a gap that separates them from people. This is clearly a problem for MacLean," the interviewer observed.

MacLean admitted the problem was real. He attributed the problem to forces larger than individual poets. "It should be that the poet would be for everyone," MacLean said. "According to him it has a lot to do with education and control of the media." When asked directly about this gap, MacLean acknowledged its reality without pretending to have solved it. "That problem exists in every country. I am aware of it," he said. "I have no answer for it. I cannot see a reason why we could not bridge that gap. But I know no one who has overcome it in Scotland, or England or Ireland—except perhaps Burns in the past. But then again he is also the most famous poet in the world." He could not see why the gap could not be closed, but he knew of only one poet who had managed it: Robert Burns, who had become so famous that he was now part of Scotland's common culture. Everyone else remained separated from ordinary people.

MacLean believed the problem came from larger forces. "It should be that the poet would be for everyone. According to him it has a lot to do with education and control of the media." The gap between poets and ordinary people was not natural. It was created by education systems that did not teach people to read poetry and by media that did not give space to it. Yet knowing this did not solve the problem. MacLean continued to write in Gaelic, even though most Gaelic speakers could not read his work.

Three months after MacLean's interview appeared, Hugh MacDiarmid, Scotland's most celebrated modern poet, died in Edinburgh at the age of eighty-six. Dutch newspapers published long obituaries about him. The Algemeen Dagblad reported that MacDiarmid, born Christopher Murray Grieve, had published his first major work "A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle" in 1926 and had founded the Scottish National Party. He was a communist who had written an autobiography called "Lucky Poet."

The NRC Handelsblad described MacDiarmid as "one of Scotland's great poets." His major works included "A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle" in 1926 and "To Circumjack Cenrastus" in 1930, along with poems praising Lenin, the Russian revolutionary leader. However, MacDiarmid's poetry was difficult to understand. "His poetry, although greatly admired in literary circles, has remained a closed book for the majority of Scots, because he used old Gaelic, modern English and the contemporary dialect of the Lowlands as suppliers for his idiom." The very richness of language that made his work admirable to critics made it impossible for ordinary readers to understand.

MacDiarmid had two great passions: Scottish nationalism and communism. He had written not only poems about Lenin but also essays about what Lenin meant to Scotland. When people accused him of wanting to return to the past, he had defended himself by saying, "When I began with these things, Scottish nationalism and Scottish language use in the twenties, the usual objection was made that I wanted to turn back the clock. But that is precisely what must happen when a clock is running wrong." He was not being nostalgic. He was trying to fix something that had broken.

MacDiarmid had listed "anglophobia" (a strong dislike of everything English) as his hobby in Who's Who. "This intense aversion to everything English was complemented in him by an equally intense love for Scotland." This was not a balanced position. It was passionate and fierce.

MacDiarmid had received many honors. He was an honorary member of the Modern Language Association of America, had a doctorate from the University of Edinburgh, was president of the Poetry Society, and was a professor of literature for the Royal Scottish Academy. Yet these honors did not bring him peace with his own community. His autobiography had been so controversial that the people of his birthplace, Langholm, had once refused to give him official honors. Despite this rejection, "he wished to be buried in Langholm." Scotland's greatest poet since Burns remained separated from the place that had made him.

The interest in Scottish poets in Dutch newspapers was not new. In February 1921, a newspaper reported on an exhibition of modern Scottish art planned for Holland. Dutch and Scottish cultural institutions had been exchanging ideas for decades. Two years later, a Dutch art exhibition opened in Glasgow, with 119 paintings, 34 etchings, and 18 sculptures. The Dutch saw in Scottish culture something that reflected their own values.

Another important Scottish poet, Edwin Muir, had received obituary coverage in Dutch newspapers in January 1959. He was born in 1887 on the Orkney Islands, moved to Glasgow at fourteen, and married the Scottish writer Willa Anderson in 1919. He lived in several countries before teaching poetry at Edinburgh and Harvard universities. "Muir wrote extremely refined and simple poetry," one obituary noted. He had also translated important German and Austrian writers. "His first poems appeared only in 1925. In total he published no more than six volumes of poetry, which however brought him great fame." Even a small body of work could bring recognition if it was good enough.

Poetry International was an important way for Dutch and Scottish culture to connect. The festival brought MacLean to Rotterdam in June 1978, where he performed his Gaelic poetry to an audience that could not understand the words but could hear the music. The festival's presenters provided translations and introductions, which made Scottish poetry accessible to people who could not read Gaelic. Vera Illès's review placed MacLean's voice among other minority languages, each one beautiful precisely because it was foreign, each one revealing something about language itself. The De waarheid interview, published two weeks after his performance, allowed MacLean to speak at length about his work, his language, and his belief that poetry should matter to society.

Yet the interview also showed the tension MacLean lived with every day. He wrote in Gaelic, the language of his people, yet most of them could not read his work. He believed poetry should be for everyone, yet he knew of no one who had bridged the gap between poets and ordinary people except Burns. He blamed education and media control for the problem, but knowing this did not solve it. And still he wrote in Gaelic, still he insisted on poetry's social importance, still he measured poetry by standards that demanded the poet's full moral commitment to the world's suffering.

MacDiarmid had faced a similar but different problem. His poetry was admired by literary experts but remained impossible for most Scots to understand. His own birthplace had rejected him, yet he wanted to be buried there. He had received every honor available to a poet, yet remained separated from his own community. He had tried to fix a broken clock, to revive a language and national consciousness that had been suppressed. The Dutch newspapers that mourned his death recognized him as great, but they also documented the gap between his achievement and his reach.

In Rotterdam, in the summer of 1978, a Scottish poet stood before a Dutch audience and spoke in a language almost no one there could understand. A critic heard in that incomprehensibility something beautiful—the sound of a language presenting itself at its most beautiful, precisely because it could not be followed word by word. That was not a solution to the gap between poetry and ordinary people. But it was something. It was a moment when the gap itself became visible, when the problem MacLean had named became real and present in the room.