“ I walked home after school; bent double in the wind; with the rain pouring horizontal from the north. In Uist, nothing ever fell down.”
Angus Peter Campbell was born and brought up in South Uist, a
fact that is clear in his writing. Maybe not necessarily South Uist itself -
unless it is stated, as in ‘Gravity’ from which the above quote is taken - but
the islands at least. The ocean, the land, the weather and the way of life are
all present in his words. He speaks of boats and islands, birds and waves, not
to mention language and its changes over time – showing Campbell’s emotions
towards the changes in not only the Gaelic language but in life itself.
He
reminisces about stories of old times, whilst using more modern poetic
techniques – for example in ‘Marina Tsvetaeva’ he uses vast, random spaces
between words to represent movement and fragmentation. He brings in dialogues
(whether it be with a person, a bird or himself) he once had, to bring a sense
of history to his writing. He even brings in a conversation with the late Sorley
Maclean (to whom the poem ‘Between the Cuillin and the Minch’ is dedicated)
which gives the reader almost a sense of foreboding, as if you’re reading
something you shouldn’t – “The last words I ever heard from you…” – because it
seems too personal, but that makes it all the more beautiful.
There is so
much feeling in each poem (sometimes it’s more apparent than other times, but
it’s always there), and throughout the collection of poems – some serious, some
more light-hearted – he covers a vast number of themes. There aren’t only the
island-inspired topics but those inspired by the working world, romance,
history, politics and the world outside of South Uist - he went to secondary
school in Oban, and university in Edinburgh, but there are also mentions of
further-flung places, like France, with smidgens of French, and Italy, including
a poem which is written in Gaelic and Italian, with no English. Campbell is
obviously an avid lover of language in any form – it is so clear in every poem
that each sentence has been put together with care, attention and excitement –
the topic of language is also a running theme throughout the collection.
Often when poems are written in two languages, a lot of meaning is lost in
translation, but as Angus Peter Campbell is a master of the English language as
well as the Gaelic language, this is not the case. I’ll admit it made me wish I
understood Gaelic but not because I felt particularly hard-done-by. It has
appeal to islanders and mainlanders, young people and old people,
Gaelic-speakers and non-Gaelic-speakers alike, and I’m not sure there are many
poets out there who can so much as claim to be able do that.
In the poem
“The Story”, Angus Peter Campbell speaks of the loss of the spoken word. Once,
speech was the primary medium by which stories, poems and songs where passed
along, but now, this is almost unheard of. You never know, maybe Aibisidh
will encourage its revival.