Autumn On Oban Bay As tin can fishing boats Rise 'n' faw They dance 'n' bob Tae the moons ebb 'n' flow The silver tipped watter Glitters bright black Like a blanket a cauld Protecting the dark As the Lorn loom, relentless Crawls ever on Like a carpet 'a' grey On a Ocean 'a' stone Auld Neptune Admires the Isles A view truly inspired Aff the stron 'a' Argyll As the lang summer en's Lea the drech back-en On yer neb, ye kin fin The winter lift darken And the lap 'a' the wash On yer soul A reminder 'a' folk N' places of old
This being my first post I thought I would introduce myself with something that I have written recently. I hail from a small fishing village on the west coast of Scotland (Oban) which I only moved to a few months ago from Glasgow. Oban is a beautiful place and is known as the gateway to the Isles (western Isles).
My first question is very straight forward.
I tried to convey an impression of Oban and what it is like standing on the pier looking out to sea on a misty autumn evening...did I succeed and do you have any suggestions how to improve my imagery?
Secondly I write most of my stuff in my native dialect (Glaswegin) and I would like to know how you found it (admittedly this one is not to bad).
Thank you all for listening and any other advise you could give would be much appreciated.
A Happy New Year to one and aw.
Dear John, the main difficulty I have
is to get into your poem.
The language and spelling you use are in my way.
Now, I understand that your poem
may have a different audience
and may work really well for someone
well familar with the dialect you use.
So, I hesitate to say it's a problem
about your poem, maybe it's simply
my problem.
One thing you might try to do would be
to rewrite the poem using more standard
spelling.
Then you can build in the elements of
the dilect you use as, perhaps,
a dialog (or something like this).
All the best on your path. Stefan
Stefan <nn_h@hotmail.com>
USA - Fri Feb 9 12:59:18 2001
Readers: You may wish to contact John Houston privately with your ideas about this poem.