Favourite poems

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Brian Taylor

Some may be surprised by my selection of poems. I must confess I was somewhat startled too, when the shortlist emerged. Emerged, Brian, emerged? Surely this is your choice, your favourite poems. Up to a point, Lord Copper.

Have you ever played those dining table games when you challenge friends to name their Top Three Films / Books / Musicians? Always envisaged in Capitals. Always impossible. Just as you name the trio, resting content, some perfect pest is certain to remind you of another worthy contender. "What? How can you possibly have a Top Three without….."

Ditto this. No Shakespeare? No Tennyson? No Ted Hughes, a youthful favourite of mine. Likewise, no Dylan Thomas. No room for Scott's verse although I regularly evangelise his finest novels, even when invited to desist.

As a youth at university, I committed verse. I was given to writing tense, impenetrable poetry and even inflicted the same upon small gatherings, attracted by coffee and warmth. The expressions of faint pain among my audience simply encouraged me to make the odes more impenetrable, still more tense.

I was rescued by the splendid woman who is now my wife of many years. She informed me, ever so gently, that the market for tense, impenetrable verse was small and shrinking. I would be better, she advised, sating my literary desire elsewhere. I turned to the rough trade of journalism instead. Always keen to advance Scotland's literary standing, I suppressed my tense verse and buried the impenetrable.

Yet those early days are reflected in the choice before you. Each of the poems has a personal resonance. Words, phrases, generate personal memories for me upon each re-reading. I would not say these were the finest dozen poems in existence although one or two might reasonably lay claim. They are, however, poems from my own past. That is why I say the list emerged. Perhaps re-emerged would be more accurate.

The astute will spot a preponderance of Scottish verse. No apologies from me. I believe that a nation which does not nurture its own cultural heritage should disdain the title. There is no point in expecting the world to cherish our literary heroes if we do not promote them ourselves.

Hence Burns – and 'Holy Willie's Prayer', a brilliant and witty piercing of pomposity, self-regard and hypocrisy. For too many years, Burns' sheer, literary talent has been hidden somewhat beneath a crust of bogus sentiment. Heaven-taught ploughman, indeed! I believe that is changing – has changed – with new appraisals of Burns' life and work. Long may that continue. Let us toast the authentic memory, not just the immortal one.

'Crowdieknowe' by MacDiarmid claims a place on the grounds that I love its evocation of a vanishing people, the confident, unquestioning rural Scots: secure in their society. For me, Henryson's fables are a potent reminder of the durability of the Scottish literary tradition. It did not begin and end with Burns. Contemporary writers are not starting afresh. There is a rich, lasting seam of work.

Within that, Liz Lochhead's poem reflects the dichotomy which sometimes afflicts Scots writers: the choice of language. Brilliantly, she tells how her native gender and tongue may struggle to find expression on the page. Verse, she reflects wryly, only seems to work if you are "posh, grown-up, male, English and dead." Thankfully, she has managed to overcome these ironic obstacles.

And Fergusson? I love the title, 'The Daft Days'. I love the glorious glee of the poem, so much at odds with his tragically short life. And, frankly, he attended Dundee High School and St Andrews University. As did I.

Then outwith Scotland. I cannot quite figure why I like Yeats so much. His fascination with the esoteric and the occult, I find enervating. His flirtation with Fascism, I find repellent. Yet his best poems are, for me, still among the finest in world literature.

Likewise, Eliot. Virtually all his relatively few poems are masterpieces. I am by no means a religious person but I appreciate the blend of the mundane and the spiritual which Eliot features in the Magi.

The Wordsworth is sheer personal indulgence. When I worked in the Press Gallery at the House of Commons, I crossed Westminster Bridge each day from Waterloo Station. The lines of verse would occasionally occur to me. Ditto those by Ray Davies in Waterloo Sunset. On this occasion, Wordsworth wins. To be mildly serious, I admire much of Wordsworth's verse.

From the Lost Leader to the thwarted disciple, Robert Browning. I adore 'My Last Duchess'. The weary, wordly atmosphere. The calculation, cunning and occasional sharp spite. The subdued drama. The rhymes which slip effortlessly from line to line. Brilliant.

Seamus Heaney would, I feel sure, claim a place in many lists, perhaps even in the capitalised Top Three. This particular poem was recommended by my son who studied it at school and loved it. Me too.

Then to Lewis Carroll to whom I regularly turn in search of insightful political analysis. "All have won and all must have prizes". That could be the core theme of the contemporary political manifesto as it seeks to convince every single voter of their central importance.

I love Jabberwocky. I chortle in my joy at its structure which proves to us all that words can be lifted and made plain by their environment. Plus I have encountered quite a few politicians who burbled as they came. Come to my arms, my beamish boy.

Then one more. Bud Neill's 'Winter'. Just a few words yet there is humour, fellow-feeling and ultimately comradely anguish on offer. Winter's diabolic, intit? You said it, Bud. You said it.

© Brian Taylor, 2009

About Brian Taylor

Brian Taylor is BBC Scotland's Political Editor. Brian joined the BBC in 1985.

After a spell co-presenting the political programme Left, Right and Centre, he was appointed Political Correspondent and then Political Editor. In that role he covers Scottish politics for all outlets, including BBC Scotland and UK network programmes.

In addition, he has presented Good Morning Scotland and is a regular contributor to other BBC programmes.

Before joining the BBC, he worked in newspapers for eight years including six years as a lobby correspondent at Westminster.

Brian has written two books on Scotland's new Parliament and co-written eight more.

Among other things, he is the author of The Scottish Parliament (Polygon, Edinburgh University Press, 1999): a definitive account of the road to devolution and its consequences, now republished in revised form.

He updated that narrative in Scotland's Parliament: Triumph and Disaster (Edinburgh University Press, November 2002). This analyses the early years of the new Parliament.

He has lectured on politics and identity in Washington, Stockholm, Madrid, Edinburgh, London and throughout Germany.

Born in 1955 in Dundee, he is a former pupil of Dundee High School and graduated MA (Honours) in English from the University of St Andrews in 1977.

He is married with two sons.

Brian Taylor 's favourite poems

• Robert Browning, 'To My Last Duchess'
• Robert Burns, 'Holy Willie's Prayer'
• Lewis Carroll, 'Jabberwocky'

• T S Eliot, 'The Journey of the Magi'

• Robert Fergusson, 'The Daft Days'

• Seamus Heaney, 'Digging'

• Robert Henryson, 'The Moral Fabillis'

• Liz Lochhead, 'Bairnsang/Kids Poem'

• Bud Neill, 'Winter'

• William Wordsworth, 'Composed Upon Westminster Bridge'

• W B Yeats, 'Easter 1916'

Related links

A L Kennedy

• Blether with Brian - Brian Taylor's blog