LOVE AND ZEN IN THE OUTER HEBRIDES
by Kevin MacNeil
Canongate, #7.99
One of Kevin MacNeil's short Gaelic lyrics laments: Poor old man - leaves/gazing at the moon for/a gloomy church. It seems
to sum up the psyche of many people of the island of Lewis in thrall to the Free Church faith,
a bondage that has darkened Gaelic poetry.
But MacNeil's gods are elsewhere, and the moon, a symbol of human devotion, is a bright presence in his poetry. The Zen in the title indicates an interest in Buddhism, and there are sentiments from Kerouac, King of the Beats.
MacNeil recognises that Gaelic culture, which is under so much pressure, cannot survive in a closed form, but is part of a world view. That is why he writes in English as well as Gaelic. In the prose-poem Joy in the Hebrides the young man out rowing with the girl is experiencing a small electric charge. Her warm tongue slithered into his mouth, all strawberries and cream. Suddenly he sees his father's boat coming round the headland. What is he to do, confronted by a different tradition in which desire was suppressed? He blinked suddenly, smacked the oars down, and spun the boat round.
MacNeil also employs a language that is mid-way between Gaelic and English in his search for the essence of life in the Hebrides: I woss ceilidhing late meekseeng drams an chokes with old Domhnall Beag.
But these Kafkaesque aphor-isms are not as succinct and successful as the poetry: i see you rising over Lochs/ and where your father sleeps/ is pouring through your eyes, his green boat, broken, cradled in your arms. With subtlety MacNeil instils life and energy into sombre island scenes: in the graveyard a/minister playing frisbee/ with his elder son.
The love lyrics are particularly successful, with their delicacy of image and language: i dreamt i was the seafloor and you were the weight of ocean pressing down on me, your quiet words of love in my ears now and again, golden, elegant, and strange, like seahorses, like grace-notes, tiny floating saxophones.
This is challenging, appealing poetry by a new-generation Gael who sees the satellite as well as the moon reflected in the loch.
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