For Those Who Tend The Soil

For Those Who Tend

The Soil A selection of poems

by Scotland’s New Generation of Makars Edited by Nazaret Ranea

Those Who Tend the Soil*

*Soil /sɔɪl/, noun: soil, also commonly referred to as earth, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support the life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from soil by restricting the former term specifically to displaced soil.

Cayes-Jacmel

by Mattea Gernentz cradled in the hills, exiled for wanting too much, the village did not stand but sank, and I thought of myths and fables unsung no meter could ever contain, the way gods masquerade, how wily Zeus became a swan, swallowed by a lesser nature, how, in the end, the earth consumes

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Horizon

by Mattea Gernentz I walk like a soldier, convalescent pendulum striking in these woods, opalescent, where I walk to tire my useless sorrow.

Perhaps you too think of Anna Akhmatova in wintertide, when each fading dusk falls to a whisper, bathing shadows in some purer candlelight alchemy.

Only below the glacial moon do I sink alone, mesmerized by its lavender fractal eclipse–crescent, signifying absence and abundance.

The treetops lean together for miles, stretching before and behind. I exist: a speck in a field, boots streaked with mud. Dust to dust.

A silent deer marks the transfiguration complete.

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Òran mo Bhliadhnachan

by Elissa Hunter-Dorans Air oidhche òran mo bhliadhnachan, Dh’fhighe ar sùilean dubha na còtaichean bian ar n-uchd.

Bha mo shùilean liath le neòil , ach chunnaic mo mheòir gu soilleir thu.

Dh’ èirich mo bhoghachan-coise dhad choinneimh, Ann an gaoth is uisge nan cùil-shràidean, nam fobhailtean ’S ged a tha m’ fhìor-ghràdh ri lorg san fhasach. ’S mi bha nam chuan dachaigheil dhar lasair fhoghair.

Ann an sìoda blàth pinc a’ chocain againn, ghiùlain ar fiaclan lùbte, ’s reub iad mo bhilean dearga ’s do fhàinnean dubha.

Nach eil sinn làn fhàinneachan is chearcaill?

Is dòcha gu bheil seo a’ ciallachadh gum bi sinn ann gu bràth, Gun dòirteadh gainmheach òir d’ fhuilt gu bràth, thairis air mo shliseagan ola.

As dèidh a h-uile càil, Air an tràigh an oidhche sin, chunnaic mi sìorraidheachd.

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Do shùilean air an snaidheadh ann an gealaichean mo dhreasa cop na mara, Na sùilean agamsa rin taobh A’ ruith sìos air mo bhrògan àrda gus faighinn air ais thugaibh-se

’S tusa mo ghràdh, mo phuirt, mo bhàrdachd.

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The Song of All My Years Translation by Elissa Hunter-Dorans On the night of my years-awaited song, Our black eyebrows knitted the fur coats of our embrace My eyes grey with clouds but my fingertips saw you clearly.

My arches rose to meet you, In the wind and rain of the suburban backstreets, Even though my true love is for the wildness.

I was the domestic ocean to our autumnal flame.

In the warm pink silk of our cocoon, Our bent teeth bore, tore my red lips and your black rings.

Aren’t we full of rings, circles, hoops?

Maybe this means it will be forever, That the golden sand of your hair will endlessly pour over oil slicks, mine After all, On the beach that night I saw eternity, your eyes etched in the whites of my seafoam gown, Mine next to them Running down my high heels to get back to you You my love, my song, my poetry.

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The Taxidermied Teumessian Fox

by Ben Mann These finite footprints echo ceaselessly; Chiselled in stale cadaver – Canis Minor – I Cannot die. Death has maimed me; My sculpted lungs longitch to sigh

figurative I bow, bent, a penned proprietor of purgatory; Baked brick-red fur bathed by chemical sponges; Adorned, my lips, plied, pierced nylon whiskers, thread

In synthetically inflated body – I Display my soul, in surgery entombed; Caught. Larynx stitched, mid-scream In breathless immobility; anchored

-through my pseudotongue tied to a modular design.

They agonise over curated imperfections; Over a wisp of scalpel residue; Over a half-forgotten shade of Theseus –

Inorganic puzzle pieces vie To stretch and strain my excavated innards; Gnarled, taut – stapled – stints limit My patchwork skin: pinchpinned

Lest like festering fruit, I be cast Petrified; in some overcrowded sepulchre, Unable to lick my spliced wounds; In breathless immobility; bolted

In caulked expiration. Faux 6

Where Laelaps rags on my star-scorched tail; Where death envelops death – we collapse to meet; We scarred species, soundless, weep.

Patchwork-life upright on stage; A pantomime of decay – ensnared Stitches enmesh, autopsied undead; Mummified below welded slabs of sooty slag;

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Who’s on the Bell!

by Ben Mann Join hands wi’ me and gut the belly o’ Monday, Devour the weekdays till Saturday, And praise the Lord, fo’ full bellies Bloated on Guinness-soaked chips Fae Saturdays soon-to-be mishanters1.

Can ye cover yer distended potbellies?

Slick with meat-sweat churning Up comes acid-reflux – choked down Wi’ good heed, aff a cool pint o’ Tennents Fae the Ivy Lodge’s stunted growth.

Swirling ash-laden dregs Amidst the gateway drugs waftin’ doon Shiprow’s cobbled street, The very stones gassin’ ‘Square Go!’ Tae each drunken lump Lumberin’ fae some bar, The only proof of life The ev’r-beeping breathalyser.

Reality dependen’ on that wee wan mare, ‘One fae the frog’, sloshed as he is.

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The next dram slammin’ The sticky-dunted table Glazed by sodden napkin froth And scarred by the snubbed rollies Which bridge the brittle moments o’ sanity.

1Scot. Misfortune, mishaps or misadventures

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Lamb

by Lydia McMillan into the hard air you are delivered coiled like a seahorse / there is the mother’s tongue wet and heavy the saline scent of life / the hills around you are the breasts of fallen sparrows / there in the little marbles of your feet lies the secret of being /

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sylvia plath feeds blueberries to a deer

by Lydia McMillan in mealy sepia a girl and a doe a dusty road grass knotted with dandelions in your white blouse you are stooped and smiling a palm beckons the wet muzzle the taut arachnid body is there recognition in the pools of your eyes a captive innocence? we are only soft animals after all a faint obstruction in the foreground could be a man’s cuff behind you the dark mouth of the Woods

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The Cul-de-sac

by Kate Millar This allotted corner of town, this loop, this calendar marked up with pen–– bins out, baptism, funeral–– this rhythm of the mixer filling up a mind, the cookie cutter stacked inside another cookie cutter, copy and paste.

This worn-down rug with circle craters––footprints from the paisley armchair–– the dog-eared pages of the Psalms, the dogwood tree and daylilies baptised with water every day, the hose, a rubber tether to the wall, stalling death for blades of grass.

This dining room piano only knows songs from sheets, this metronome, the foot pedal pressing a steady beat like granny’s old sewing machine.

Where is care without obligation, without habit? Care as rushing current or wind. The house exhales its smoke skyward, scoffs: There is such a thing as harmony, a population of sound coming from just ten fingers.

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World Music Composer, 12/12/22

by Rhys Pearce For Deitra Kanellos

Today I feel like we’re the only two alive you, a virgin visitor, I your guide.

We’ll steer clear of the science wing, save a short visit to dolly which is how I’ll know, sans-inscription, that you forgive me for my folly – we start off at the Dead Zoo, of beasties extinct except in spirit, and I think of you as a brand new day when I was down to my last minute; on the verge of joining that solemn list that kicks off with the dodo, ‘cause I’m proud I stayed around for this, but how exactly, I still don’t know.

Then in the halls of latent cultures, we find the world music composer the flash that runs it long corroded, but its song still far from over and in that moment we’re it’s coda, strummed on lire, banged on bodhrán, conjoined across the world and through that distance interwoven13

for together we’ll live longer than we ever could alone, preserved in Lewis chessmen and entrenched in Dunbar’s close, ‘cause if there’s one thing that I’ve learnt from all our dates amongst the past: more than kingdoms, more than Empires, it’s the things of love that last.

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The Soldier Who Raised His Hand

by Nazaret Ranea The soldier who raised his hand because he saw his brothers soaked, sunken, yet thirsty – with boots full of mud.

Crossing the moors of a field of rabbits, he glimpsed his torment when from the sky cement began to rain.

Like an orphan without solace, he walked sadly through the streets.

His red hair, cut through the wind.

His yellow teeth were breaking with dreams.

The purple veins of his legs already seemed like dry lilies to me.

They arrested him at dawn, without warning, alongside his army of children.

On the banks of the Jarama, the fog, shrank in fear amongst the reeds.

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Some prayed, others kissed.

In the fallen morning, a sigh of iron twitched.

No one complained.

A curtain of sad, cold steam struck their medals, that swung softly, like flat river pebbles.

The earth was always the destination that now covers the face of the soldier who raised his hand and said nothing, nothing at all.

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Those Who Tend The Soil

by Nazaret Ranea I’m scared that tomorrow the sun will rise from the left and, caught off guard, shine on my back, making my shadow appear too large.

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My Old House

by Calum Findlay Rodger I visited the battlefield last night My flesh culled absence Hollow sounds resound around the walls My voice a sunken gong Muted screams run through the corridor My hushed cries and whispers awaken your clear eye fixed skyward to a dark, starless ceiling Lamb slumber, my intangible touch pulls you into a cold chasm of indifference.

I have stitched care onto you like a scab.

The master bedroom: the honeysilk curtains that wafted so gently, spitting back an image of impermanence: him and her.

His new woman, his new leather boot; A new radical explosive.

Sunscreen smoothing into lissome clavicles, fans idly fluttering: her sheltered soul an aseptic pearl: a prize among weathered rocks.

There are no detonations here.

Their love: a beautiful cargo boat carrying the weight of disposable, ugly hearts Sailing to a country as foreign as peace, As foreign as the memory of my love.

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And he: the immovable winter light that effaces all close associations.

The dentist that prods memory, memories he files his iron nails against.

O general, the horsewhip link between you and your son: an amputated umbilical cord, reeking of gasoline. He shadows like your cadets.

I see you statued by the window looking at him.

Your calf toppling from the wind, the wind that whispers the battlefield’s secrets and promises nothing but ache. The wind unloads its griefs onto his small body.

Clear, moving, free: it is what you want to be.

I drift out past the bluebells and gorse The earthen tomb, holding memories that sway in the tall grass.

I watch the future march back to my house Black-booted and silent.

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Annie Ralph

by Caitlin Sherret I am sitting out with Jeannie when I hear them sharp-kneed’ and shrieking, pulling homemade carts stacked pine cones rattling – some flying out as wheels hit stones the young ones scrabbling around to retrieve them – children. Flooding the narrow streets like tributaries like raindrops after drought.

Wee Dougall approaches – “Mrs Ralph! How many today?”

I wonder when he’ll learn that my order varies not with what I have in my basket by the fire but by how pinched those cheeks are, by how many bairns I know have mothers expecting.

I consider him solemnly.

“The full ninepence today, Dougall.”

His eyes gleam as he runs to and fro pooling cones into my apron.

We are part of an ecosystem here – my salt-pinched hands keep more than my lot fed.

The fish I gut feed many 20

before gracing gullets of Russians and Danes. This town is also the sea – these kids minnows, darting round corners, behind skirts.

But soon they’ll be seals selkies swimming the waves whooping and yelling over the wind.

Or they’ll stand with the oystercatchers like me and the lassies hands blurring through fish after fish caking the creatures in salt to seal the freshness That salt smell lingers as I sit here taking in the last of the sun over the crooked rooftops my mind drifts to tomorrow morning I’ll rise at dawn to collect bait we’ll go together, the lassies in my street walk along the shoreline, veer inland to find the soft sandy earth the worms like bent double for so long, we’ll pause to stretch look across the Firth to the Sutors and inhale this sea, this life force around which we all turn.

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AUTHORS Mattea Gernentz - Mattea Gernentz is a poet and art curator from Tennessee based between Edinburgh and Paris. She studied English literature and psychology at Wheaton College before pursuing an MLitt in Museum and Gallery Studies at St Andrews. As a 2022 Next Generation Young Makar and 2023 Writer-in-Residence at the Château de la Haute Borde, Mattea's writing has been featured in a variety of publications, exhibitions, and anthologies.

Elissa Hunter-Dorans - Elissa Hunter-Dorans is a writer and musician from the Highlands. She has contributed to many Gàidhlig literary and cultural projects, and has a deep fascination with folklore and tradition.

She is currently studying History of Art and Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh.

Ben Mann - Benjamin Mann is one of the Scottish Poetry Library’s 2023 Next Generation Young Makars. He holds an Honours in English Literature and Creative Writing, and his poetry seeks to represent and explore Scots language; alongside approaching, representing and partaking in the contemporary confabulations concerning Scotland’s common creative future and national identity.

Lydia McMillan - Lydia McMillan is a poet from Dumfries and Galloway, currently living and studying in Edinburgh. She has been shortlisted for the Wigtown Fresh Voice Award and in 2022 was selected for the Scottish Poetry Library’s Next Generation Makars programme.

She has been published in numerous magazines and periodicals, and has read at literary festivals including Dandelion, StAnza, Wigtown and the Edinburgh Fringe.

Kate Millar - Kate Millar is a poet and writer from Edinburgh, currently based in New York City to complete her MFA in Creative Writing at The New School. She finds poetry everywhere, especially in indie/alternative music, nature, and conversations with 22

friends/strangers. Her poetry can be found in Gutter, Ekstasis, Lucent Dreaming, and The Inflectionist Review; her music writing can be found in BOMB, and Atwood Magazine.

Rhys Pearce - Rhys Pearce is a writer and spoken word artist from the Scottish Borders. She has recently performed at festivals such as Wigtown, Dandelion and StAnza, after also being appointed a young makar by the latter. She studies at Trinity College Dublin, where she is editor-in-chief of the Attic magazine.

Nazaret Ranea - Born in 1999 in Málaga, Spain, Nazaret Ranea is an emerging poet now residing in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2023, she was recognized as one of Scotland’s New Generation of Makar, and made her debut at the Fringe festival while sharing her poetry on BBC Radio Scotland. Currently, she focuses on her debut anthology. Nazaret's work features in international poetry collections and literary magazines.

Calum Findlay Rodger - Calum Findlay Rodger, currently pursuing his studies in English Literature at The University of Edinburgh, finds his main poetic inspiration in confessional poetry. His passion lies in the art of evoking profound emotional responses through the creative exploration of voice, imagery, and the deliberate emphasis on intensifying the sense of experience.

Caitlin Sherret - Caitlin Eilidh Sherret is a poet from Nairn, currently based in Stirling. After studying English and Film at Edinburgh Napier University, she was a Traverse Theatre Young Writer in 2020 and one of the Scottish Poetry Library’s Next Generation Makars in 2022.

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AKNOWLEDGMENTS Poems contained in this booklet are the work of Scotland's Next Generation of Young Makars.

Check the website to find out more: https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/ The programme, sponsored by the Scottish Poetry Library, pairs young poets with more established poets. These mentors were: Janette Ayachi, Niall O’Gallagher, Aoife Lyall, Tom Murray and Michael Pedersen.

On behalf of Scotland’s Next Generation of Young Makars, I’d like to express our gratitude to the Scottish Poetry Library, particularly Director Alif Khan and Projects & Learning Coordinator Samuel Tongue, for their valuable resources and support in bringing this poetry collection to life.

Without a doubt, this project wouldn't have been possible without the contributions of the Young Makars featured in this anthology: Mattea Gernentz, Elissa Hunter-Dorans, Ben Mann, Lydia McMillan, Kate Millar, Rhys Pearce, Nazaret Ranea, Calum Rodger, and Caitlin Sherret.

Supported by: The Scottish Poetry Library Creative Scotland City of Edinburgh Council 24

Printed in Out of the Blue Drill Hall Edinburgh, Scotland.

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