100 hokku

100 hokku were collected throughout the year-long journey; contributions came from poets and friends of the project, and from Eck and Ken's 53 visits. Read together, the poems form a word-map of contemporary Scotland.

For a list of contributors, click here. You can listen to the recorded poems as you read them; the recording was made in May 2011, on the final day of the project, at the hidden gardens in Glasgow. The reading begins with ceremonial drum and chimes by Colin Will, followed by a performance of 'Gradh gael mo chridh' by Margaret Bennett, and an introduction by Eck and Ken.

Following the 100 hokku, Margaret performs 'Grioale Chridhe' (Glen Lyon's Lament), and Mr Tarahaya - the Japanese Consul - closes with a speech and a performance of 'kojo no suki' (ruined castle). To listen to the recording, press play. You can also download the file for free here.

under the sickle docken rainwet sorrel yellow buttercups nettle bracken hours brown toad made homeless

Carbeth

*

a thousand raindrops
hit the trees
all at once

Assynt

*

Green islets
wink
in cardigan sea.

Arisaig

*

Moon over the Clyde;
the marker buoys wink across
redgreen, redgreen; white…

*

dogwood and redwood

line the hound graves
nine lives ninety six years



Skelmorlie Castle, Ayrshire

*

Rhum, Eigg, Canna –
islands takes up so much
of this inland sea

*

March, snowdrops still out
at Culcreuch: on the lochan
a swan frisks its wings

*

The intention looks unlikely
Blue is a teased line
Mountains all point to it

Broad Bay

*

We’re steering zero
The satellites nearly agree
With Jubilee’s magnetism

*

2 crows
tow a line
over Crawsfield

Bonnington House

*

Hoy's twin hills
the heart's atriums –
ventricles deep in the sea

*

still seeing green Erin

Columba went an isle further
returning only
to bury his mother

Garvellach

*

Five bluetits breakfast on the wire basket filled with peanuts

Auchinrowan, Whiting Bay, Arran

*

year by year
the ferns climbdown the well

Dunstaffnage

*

2,900 million years of
banded gneiss
in Rebecca’s palm

Bail Sear

*

a finger-width from Muck
Horse Island
I want to go there

*

Bach motets on the road back from Lochranza
pausing to watch clouds pass

*

far from the sea
a straw tide
spated beyond the hollow roots
of willow and alder

Loch Tay

*

bunker picnic – straw-
berry tea and the wind tur-
bines softly soughing

Tingwall

*

Fossils in the bank
by Gollachy Burn along
from Shore of Buckie.

*

a pint of
The Pinnacle at
Miss Bosville's, Portree

*

an oyster catcher
calls over
the Atlantic

Seil

*

Dumfries New Year's Day:
two men in t-shirts converge,
to strangle each other

*

Eilean nan Gobhar –
they walked five metres
and managed to discover
another beautiful thing

*

Fingal's Castle –
can't tell the real birds
from the phone app

*

knotted wrack
quieting and darkening
the tidal wood

Salmon Bay

*

Loch Eilt’s wee beaches
just big enough
for one

*

Munlochy rain
a memory of sunshine
a memory of health

*

September return
to Fortingall's standing stones
summer meadow mown

*

sitting where Burns sat –
last summer's beech leaves
carpet the ground

Birks o’ Aberfeldy

*

Slioch
winding windblown staircase
up to the clouds

*

Tobar Loch Shianta
the sound of rain
in the hazel-wood

*

Horizontal snow –
stag apparitions
walk to Torridon

*

Allt Mor Shantaig
when does river become sea
and sea, river?

*

Newton –
a Lowland name
though the map’s a mixture of allts & burns

*

watched a goosepair become
sky specks dancing eyes

Ardnamurchan

*

that I could be
as a tongue of sunlight
drawing slowly over Harris

Hill of Mourning, Callanish

*

Snow on Ben Ledi
Branches creak in the wind
My aching joints

*

The Sanny Braes
fleein doon i sand
sweem in throo i waves

*

a dry heap
of small boned-birds,
their tiny crania holding the wind

Zoar

*

a field is never empty :
the whirr of sparrows
the click of stones

Stenaquoy

*

Each Spring
she paints her front door,
fixing a moon to the chimney

Machrihanish

*

How pleasant the walk
from Da Kame to Hamnafield,
in and out of fog

*

We were given rays at Port
Steering north to find the rock
Accepting warmth while it lasts

*

Loch Hàsco's a' Chailleach
os cionn sleamhnachadh a' bhasalt
mar a ghluaiseas na Maighdeannan gu cladach

Loch Hasco and the Old Woman
above the slippage of basalt
as the Maidens ease to the shore

*

ann am Boreraig
feannag
air feannaig

in Boreraig
a crow
on a lazybed

*

a’ sealltainn thar Chaolas Shleite
ris an aon aiseag mun fhaire
’s a bh’ ann o chionn uair a thide

looking over the Sound of Sleat
at the one ferry on the horizon
which has been there an hour

*

as t-fhoghar an Cuil Fhodair
cealgan de bhealaidh-an-fheoladair
gan sguabadh mun a’ bhlar

Culloden in the autumn,
prickles of Butcher’s Broom
sweep the battlefield

*

Ulapul: faoileán aonairníl
gíoscánó
na báid

Ullapool: a lone seagull
no creaking
from the boats

*

Coire Shalach
a hainm á ghlanadh
ag an eas

Coire Shalach / Ugly Hollow
the waterfall
clears its name

*

Alltan Dubh
búiríl
sa chiúnas

Alltan Dubh river
roars
in silence

*

an Cùl na Beinne,
gun taigh gun duine,
tuath-gaoithe

in Cùl na Beinne,
not a house nor a person,
windfarm

*

Tea from the green cup.
Morning mist rises slowly
to touch my forehead

Strathdon

*

Boughs bent with berries
above waterfall bubbles.
My old eyes lost count

Moniaive

*

Our summer tea flows
like a beautiful sentence
from the spout’s curved nib

Towie

*

a rain slicked junction
a wide, flat sea
a red ferry drawing curves

Stranraer

*

Winter dawn, with geese
flying down the Strath, cold light
erasing the thin moon

Strathpeffer

*

"seen ra big fir mister, eh –
howfars ra fir, ra big fir
59 metres an’ stull growin”

Dunkeld

*

approaching The Bridge
my fingers can’t help
feeling for change

Forth Road Bridge

*

at Dun Troddan the burn threads
a soft line paper-
torn through spruce

*

when the tide is high
take the path
through the graves

St Monans

*

in exchange for olives, almonds, and peaches
Sonia chose this northern view
of Lomond from her orchard

Falkland

*

unloading my backpack
I write the postcard
in my head

Mossblown

*

my bath’s run
the colour
of the burn
the colour of whisky

Talladh-A-Bheithe

*

on the rise to Drumochter
both our eyes flicker
onto the petrol dial

*

skiing at Hillend
CANCELLED
due to snow

*

from Ceardach Ruadh and Cnoc Burgh
Hiort and Boraraigh are grey
hoops against a dun ocean

St Kilda

*

imagine a world
in which every keep
was a doocot

Newark

*

an ash’s grown out the rock
carrying the slender shoot of a rowan
in its crook

Dundurn

*

On a murky day
at the Cairn o’ Mount viewpoint
I can see nothing

*

blackthorn winter should be over now
but there’s a fresh sprinkling of snow
on East and West Cairn

*

it’s even warm
in the film of weed
in Tayvallich’s pool of sun

*

in Glenelg
MacAskill’s a wee boy
plays no.9 for Rangers

*

the wood surrenders
to the will of wind

Langais

*

Train near Aviemore.
Dead buzzard on the sleepers.
Eyes have become grey.

*

even on Colonsay
when you hear a curlew
you long for Colonsay

*

it’s another good day
for milling wind

Whitelee

*

Driving through Dumbarton
a cherry-blizzard strikes
and everybody’s smiling

*

on Ben Lui and Ben Macdui,
I think of T’ao Chi’en and Du Fru, I
think of Lu Yu and shan-shui

*

Evening sun mountains

With their crown of cloud:
As I sail away from them,

Knowing I should have stayed



Lochranza - Claonaig ferry

*

Summer is an isle

we sail to every year -
coming back's the hard part



Achiltibuie

*

Old seaman's cottage -
From its great rusty anchor

Evening shadows emerge



Stromness

*

To the map of the colony
Feet-first puffins

Flying in
From the blue summer sea



Lunga, Treshnish Isles

*

A station where

The heathered air
Is let into the train -
No one disembarks



Forsinard

*

Adziel sky turning
the gulls learning
the wind

*

what flower is that –
white petals opening
over the skerries?

Stroma

*

sun blinking

through wet trees of
white writing 


The Black Isle

*

all my failures
are turning to honey

Airthrey

*

growing toward the light
slowly spins the trees

Polmadie Woods

*

wishing you were here
to tell me the name
of that bird singing

Crarae

*

just this once
the gulls cry
a change in the weather
for the better

Pittenweem

*

shifting about
the steerman’s hand
grasps a rowan tiller

The Inland Sea

*

Maeshowe as I turn
east is white
west is green

*

steely blue sea
and hazy sky
merge into Jura's Paps

*

lightness of breath in puffs of mist
this could be their last day on earth

Glen Rosa

*

at Broad Law’s summit
the anti-climax
of a radio mast

*

the ash tree's the garden's
sea sounding waves
in its dark-tipped branches

Stonypath

*

eye-to-eye
with the water-lily
and blue dragonfly

Lochan Duilleag-bhàite

*

ripples
on the rocks
in the rocks

Westray

*

a toast for
the longest day –
Schiehallion! Schiehallion! Schiehallion!





List of contributors               [go back]

John Cayley
Alexander Maris
Ian Stephen
Hugh McMillan
William Hershaw
Alison Flett
Lesley Harrison
Richard Price
Sandy Hutchison
Donald Adamson
Angus Dunn
Rob Bushby
Gerry Loose
Alistair Peebles
Colin Will
Ken Cockburn
Alec Finlay
Chris Powici
Jen Hadfield
Larry Butler
Gerry Loose
Rody Gorman
Luke Allan
Alison Flett
Kathleen Jamie
John Glenday
Rody Gorman
David Eyre
Stephen Watts
Hamish Ironside
Linda france
Nalini Paul
Robert Alan Jamieson
James McGonigal