Burns Night Pondering

The 25th is Burns night and I’m looking at doing a few of his poems with English classes – thinking a couple of poems and then some Scottish recommended reads would be a nice lesson.

With that in mind I’ve been reading some of his poems this week and reading up on the man himself.  Grandad was a Burns fan and my father also reads his work regularly - including performing ‘Address to a Haggis’ or making some for the other speeches at a range of Burns nights over the years. Personally I have a couple of favourites – ‘My Luve is Like a Red Red Rose’ and ‘To a Louse‘.

We had a reading of ‘My Luve is Like a Red Red Rose’ at my wedding.  A friend performed it and it is a really romantic idea that you will love someone until the seas dry and the mountains disappear. It might nit be eternity but given how long that will actually take I’m willing to go with that.

‘To a Louse’ is just funny – gross but funny. The mental picture of a louse crawling around on the woman in fronts head during the church service is seriously gross. It’s one of the ones I remember reading at my Grandparents as a kid in their old copy if Burns poems – illustrated at points by either my Granddad or someone in his family.

Last year my Dad was doing one of the Burns speeches and found out loads about the man and his women One of the things that’s interesting about Burns is that his poems were often political and satirical and Dad introduced me to ‘Holy Wilie’s Prayer’ last year. Not sure I can use it in school since I fear it might be lost on the S1 and S2 pupils plus it’s a bit rude but it is fun. If you aren’t familiar with it Holy Willie was a real person, a church elder known in the local area and the poem  is Burns mocking him as although he claims to be Holy his actions are anything but. I just love the idea that God is going to accept being pissed is an excuse for having sex:

“Wi’ Leezie’s lass, three times I trow -
But Lord, that Friday I was fou”

BBC have a wonderful archive of his poems and songs which includes them being performed by a wide range of people.  Alternatively find Eddi Reader’s CDs where she’s singing Burns songs – they are wonderful to listen to.

Or you could download the iPhone App of his poems and songs for free! It’s been created by Scotland.org and you can also get more information on Burns Night on their site.

If you fancy a book then try “A Night Out With Robert Burns; The Greatest Poems’‘ by Andrew O’Hagan who’s done context and a nice editorial around classic Burns poems. For more on the man himself try SCRAN’s Burns site as a starting point.