Old Tongue

this poem, written by the fabulous Jackie Kay, moves me greatly.  it's even more brilliant when she reads it.

enjoy! 



Old Tongue

When I was eight, I was forced south.

Not long after, when I opened

my mouth, a strange thing happened.

I lost my Scottish accent.

Words fell off my tongue:

eedyit, dreich, wabbit, crabbit

stummer, teuchter, heidbanger,

so you are, so am ur, see you, see ma ma,

shut yer geggie or I’ll gie you the malkie!


My own vowels started to stretch like my bones

and I turned my back on Scotland.

Words disappeared in the dead of night,

new words marched in: ghastly, awful,

quite dreadful, scones said like stones.

Pokey hats into icecream cones.

Oh where did all my words go -

my old words, my lost words?

Did you ever feel sad when you lost a word,

did you ever try and call it back

like calling in the sea.

If I could have found my words wandering,

I swear I would have taken them in,

swallowed them whole, knocked them back.


Out in the English soil, my old words

buried themselves. It made my mother’s blood boil.

I cried one day with the wrong sound in my mouth.

I wanted them back; I wanted my old accent back,

my old tongue. My dour soor Scottish tongue.

Sing-songy. I wanted to gie it laldie




(you can hear her interview with eleanor wachtell at http://www.cbc.ca/writersandcompany/schedule/july.html  july 15th entry.  unfortunately, there isnt a time marker on the interview where you can hear this poem...you can find this poem at about the 8mm from the right mark...sorry to be so obscure...)