A New Way with Time
reviewed by Brent Hodgson in Lallans ( "the journal o Scots airts an letters") 65, 122
Editorial address: Blackford Lodge, Blackford, Perthshire PH4 1QP
Administrative address: Lallans, c/o SLRC, A K Bell Library, York Place, Perth PH2 8EP

A New Way with Time, Jimmy Crighton. Poor Tom's Press, Leicester, 2003, 36pp., £3.00.

Jimmy cam fae Dundee an went tae St. Andra's Univairsitie. He wes in India wi the airmie whan he became acquant wi the thochts o Gandhi. Back hame, he gied the studie o languages a miss an taen up medicine. Syne, thare wes wark in hospitals an as a G.P. On retirement, he did mair studie an wun til a Ph.D.

Sae he wes a learit man, but no wan wi his heid in the cloods. His defineition o hooghmagandie, seen in the form o a haiku, is a hoot. In keepin wi whit A jalouse wes his eident approach tae the warld o the ordinar readar, the'r a want o hie-falutin wurds in his poems, an thai ir nane the waur o that! Fae 'Granda':

Ma grandfaither beydit up the Hilitoon,
through a pend o blackened stanes
an' up twa flights o bendie stairs...
Wha haes mind o the Lascar? Sik a man, an his fellaes, pleyed a pairt in feedin the graith o ae Scottish industrie. Fae the pom 'Exile':
...along a hostile shore,
an alien harbour.
Jute had brought him to this,
and the necessities of empire.
Wha amang us haes wrutten a poem o the day Celtic went tae play fitba in Leicester, an the Bhoys war thrang in yon toun? Jimmy did. It is a gryte peety he is nae langer writin his poetrie. Eftir he tholit cancer for seeven year, Jimmy went tae the hill' - as fowk o Cheena yuist tae say in days o yesteryear.

Return to Brian Fewster's poetry site