The Doric Poetry Mannie - by Duncan Harley


It's maybe just a few weeks till the annual anniversary of the demise of Bob Smith. I am always ahead of the game and just thought that you might be happy to remember the splendid man. Bob famously spent a latter career slaving over adverts for an uncaring local paper and was a fierce critic of Donald Trump.
He would never miss an opportunity to mention Trump in his popular poems, which featured weekly in Aberdeen Voice.

 He features in my two books along with the likes of Wallace, Bruce, Byron and T.E. Lawrence. And why not. 
All in all, Bob contributed in excess of 200 poems to the Aberdeen Voice and had a few of his pieces published in the glossy Leopard. There maybe should have been a book but he never made it into that sort of print.
Occasionally I think of the man. For some strange reason, his memory popped up today despite the few more weeks till the anniversary of his passing.
Here, for what it's worth, is his take on the Doric:
A’ve ayewis spak the Doric
Sin a wis jist a loon
A dialect still weel loo’d
Fae the Spey tae Bervie toon

Fin a wis at the local skweel
In classrooms it wis banned
Ye were threatened wi the scud
Fit wid hae wairmed yer hand

Bit eence oot in the playgrunIt flowed oot o yer moo
An wi yer freens an neipers
Doric wisna thocht taboo

We canna lit iss language dee
It’s pairt an paircel o oor lan
The Doric an the North east
They aye gyang han in han

A’m  loathe tak in fit a’m hearin
Young fowk canna say “ch” as in loch
Fit’s the warld cumin tae
If ye canna git yer tongue aroon roch?

Doric wirds are mair expressive
Than onything else ye micht hear
Thunk hivvens fowk still spik it
In kwintra placies like New Deer

The  braw wird  “dreich” a like
Instead o jist sayin “dull”
Or maybe gyaan “heelster-gowdie”
As ye tummle doon a hull

Robbie Shepherd he still spiks it
An a Doric sang he’ll sing
Sin the days o “The Garlogie Fower”
Iss chiel’s bin the Doric “king”

Lits aa fecht fer the Doric
Hae it taacht in aa the skweels
Instead o aa the lah-de-dahs
Thinkin the Doric is fer feels


Poetry wirds (c) Bob Smith – The Poetry Mannie
Other wirds (c) Duncan Harley

 More @: https://aberdeenvoice.com/2015/04/bob-smith-the-poetry-mannie-a-lost-voice/


Location: Aberdeen, UK

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