Colin Bramwell

“Wan decade frae wir last self-defeatin referendum, we're close tae hae the centenary ae MacDiarmid's masterpiece, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle. Oan the man's daith, Norman MacCaig said they should observe twa minutes' pandemonium. Fine description ae MacDiarmid himself, as much as whit he unleashed. MacDiarmid wiss Scotland's ultimate political poet. We winna rehearse the man's mony faults here - "problematic", says Heaney. Aye. And in spite ae this, MacDiarmid's mair important tae the cause ae Scots and Scotland than ony ither poet frae the previous century. "My job, as I see it, has never been to lay a tit's egg, but to erupt like a volcano, emitting not only flame, but a lot of rubbish." And that's hou Mount MacDiarmid maun be regarded: tempted as we may be tae tak oot the rubbish, we canna thraw the hail lot awa, as wull shairly be settin the bins ablaze. An whit's mair self-defeatin nor a bin fire?”
― Colin Bramwell, Irish Pages, Vol. 12, No. 2: Scotland