Skald 

New Hope International Review
An independent small press poetry review.

Poetry Scotland # # 43 - 44

This bumper edition containing some longer poems launches POETRY SCOTLAND into its 10th year.

The celebrations kick off with the first 32 verses of Ian Crockatt's Viking epic, Skald. The title is Old Norse and means an ancient bard, a minstrel and reciter of eulogies.

Language, teased from his tongue,
    snared, tangled as his hair,
invades her inner ear.
    Finding it floods her mind
with oath, sinew, saga... 

Later we meet gannets:

The wall of Cuil cliff is
    crammed with gannets, jammed in
cracks or lodged on ledges,
    wedged in wave-lashed caves.

And Ghosts:

Other word-makers
mouth myths at the cliff’s edge
where gull-squalls mewl and trawl,
skiffs founder, drowned men loll
their logged limbs ashore.

We are promised more heroic verses from SKALD later in the year. I can't wait!

A gold star should go to Ian Crockatt for the second part of his epic, Skald. His use of language is riveting in this extract entitled AFTERMATH:

Paul Scorff’s soul was wounded.
Mouths rave — in his skull’s cave
axe-scars’ fixed grins open,
cursing serpents burst out;
his skin’s white, unbroken.
Garth’s leg’s irregular
gouts of blood had him eat-
ing screams. Urf stutters reams

of moon-struck verse. Venn
twirls snivelling girls on
his thigh-stump. Cold camp fires,
the torpor of corpses,
that slapstick raven-strut
of drunken monk-slayers.
Under the rowan — spell-
bound — my eyes welled, drowned me.

I would urge you to read this extract aloud to appreciate the rhythms and the impact of Crockatt's chosen words. Part one of this stunning work appeared in issue 43.