It is 1796, and I just happen to be walking the streets of Dumfries, partly as a tourist, but partly hoping to bump into Robert Burns. Hold it now, is that Robert just leaving the Excise Office. Let me see if I can catch up with him for a brief interview.
Hello Rab – I am Richard MacKenzie do you mind if I ask you a few questions?
“Yes, but be brief. I’m on my way to Doc Mackenzie. Besides, I don’t want to be seen too much in public – creditors you know!”
How about we go into the pub for a wee dram?
“Now there’s a great idea!”
The Interview
Rab tell me a little about your family background, especially that part that influenced your poetry and songs.
Well as you probably already are aware, my family is a hard working one. My grandfather, after whom I am named, was a farmer in the Lowlands. When his farming ventures failed, my father, William Burnes and my uncle Robert, left home looking for work. My Father ended up briefly in Edinburgh as a gardener, but then made his way across the country, to Ayrshire. He was a stubborn man, of ungainly integrity, high ideals but headlong ungovernable irascibility. He built himself a cottage in Ayrshire with a chimney.
He met and married my mother Agnes Broun, a woman of limited education, but of great domestic skills. She also has a great sense of humor, a sharp memory and a keen ear for songs and country sayings. I wonder how much of my ability to imagine and bring humor into my poetry and songs is influenced by her. I am told that the days around my birth, a wild Atlantic gale damaged our home and I had to be carried through the storm to a neighbors house - perhaps in retrospect an augury of my own life.
Perhaps this is a good time to talk about your education. As a student you must have been unique in your demands, grappling with your necessary work on the farm and studying.
Well, I am sort of blessed with a good memory, reading and understanding and I have a natural curiosity. I was able to acquire the basics of the 3 R’s by the time I was about 10 yrs old. But most importantly, I had the farm work to do - guiding the horses, ploughing and ultimately the reaping and threshing. In retrospect, I was a boy doing a man’s work. These experiences had a strong influence on me, my poetry and songs. I got to know and love nature - both its plants and animals. Father had a strong influence on me too, not only in words but also by example and belief. He taught me the principles of Presbyterian theology, but he hired a young man of 18 years, John Murdoch, to teach the basics to my younger brother, Gilbert and me. Gilbert was the better student as I tended to have mood swings which affected my attention and behavior. But Mr Murdoch stuck with me, not so much firing up my imagination, but impressing on me that books have meaning and that words should be used with precision. I have always loved to talk and Murdoch’s early drills really helped me in my expression. But Murdoch type of education did not stimulate my imagination and fantasy that so much influences my poetry and songs. That is left to the incidental education of my life experience - my mother’s pithy sayings and with the scores of old songs and ballads that she sung as she went about her work. And of course we cannot forget Betty Davidson who has the largest collection in the county of tales and songs about ghosts, fairies, witches, warlocks and the like.
Due to poverty you certainly didn’t have the privilege of a worldly experience or extensive social interaction, so when did you find yourself having the need or desire to write poetry?
I think conscious pleasure in song and poetry came to me early in my boyhood, through some of the hymns of the church. And it was the story of William Wallace that poured a proud Scottish prejudice in my veins. But the need and desire to write poetry on my own did not awaken until about 15. Nelly Kilpatrick stirred feelings in me that I was unfamiliar with. I liked to loiter behind her on returning from our full day of labors in the fields. She would also sing, while working, with a beautiful voice that I would feel in my heart. And when I touched her hands to remove the nettles and thistles I would feel my pulse race. I wanted to capture those feeling and emotions in words, rhyme and song. It was then I knew I had to set my feelings down and thus I composed my first song “Handsome Nell”.
I then became aware of an awakening in me, something that was different than in the average young peasant ploughman. Because of the expense and scarcity of paper, I began to compose poems and songs in my head. It was often the associated melodies that led the way. Each year around harvest time, I would have a carnival in my bosom in which I would make more verses than during the rest of the year. I drew my verses from my life experience - the toils of the common man, my sympathies for the poor, the oppressed, for the animal kingdom. I hated all manner of cruelty, oppression, the arrogance of the privileged and wealthy. I tried to express my love for my fellowman, for humanity in general and for women in particular.
Many are critical of my relationships with women. My poetry allowed me to experience and express my feelings - an expression that was more common to women than to my fellow farmer. Thus we communicated with both our words and bodies, our moods and emotions. This communication was often the sole recognition of the woman’s value beyond the domestic toils and work in the fields. I like to believe that my skills at rhyming and the tenderness of my words offered a welcome escape from the drudgery of their everyday life.
Despite the present shift towards English cultural and linguistic influence, you write many of your works, especially the more popular ones, in the Scottish dialect. This of course runs the risk of making it less popular among many of your readers, especially those already well-versed in the English language. Why do you choose to do this?
That indeed is a complicated question, due to the many influences that are working at present to diminish the dignity of the average Scotsman, his native language and his heritage. Here is the simple answer. I want to make the Scots conscious of the richness of their national traditions that are so much wrapped up in their memories, songs, poems, manners and literature These take expression through the language of the common folk, whereas the people of rank tend to mimic the haughty airs of the gentry of London, whom by the way, I despise. The broad Scots dialect, the sturdy words with special meaning, express for example every phase of common day activities from the crudest bawdry to the idyllically beautiful. Some of my verses, I might caution, are not for ladies reading! My desire to capture the life of the poor and humble man greatly influences my style of poetry. I tend to write more in the manner of folk poetry much as it did Robert Fergusson. Thus my poetic structure is much different from the commonplace practice of couplets and accurately counted syllables that is now so popular among the English.
As you gained more confidence and received appreciation for your songs and poetry, your reputation locally and regionally, grew. Your life has certainly changed from only the toils of farming to one of much merriment, socializing and pub life. That seemed to stimulate in you much thinking about humanity, its surroundings and the human condition. You also got into serious trouble with the Armour family due to your relationship with their daughter Jean.
It is also said, you always had an unspoken desire to be famous and to be recognized for your work. Early in your life, most of your poetry was being circulated in loose manuscripts or by reading aloud. You had the idea of publishing a volume which you did. ‘Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect’ was a great success. This by chance happened at time that you were planning to leave for the West Indies, a move that would conveniently allow you to escape the upset that you had caused, especially with the Armours. But a copy reached Edinburgh, the center of the Scottish cultural reformation, where it was well received. You changed your plans and went to Edinburgh. Your ventures there have had a significant impact on your literary life. Tell me a little of that experience.
Ah yes, my health is not good. In fact my health has never been good. I am just now heading to the good Doctor Mackenzie for a tooth ache that is torturing my gums and fevers. As far as Edinburgh is concerned, I owe a lot to Glencairn who is an Earl with many connections. He set up several introductions for me. I am very sensitive to the elitism of the gentry and the special privileges that they enjoy socially because of who they are. They only tolerated me, the ploughman poet with country upbringing because of my popularity and the common man appeal of my poetry. My lack of big city, social finesse no doubt annoyed them. But I made no effort to appear more than I am. I dressed as a plain young farmer and I did my best to act the part. And it is no secret that I often would respond to their polite snobbery with wit or at times aggressive and heavy handed language. Can you believe that some even had the nerve to suggest that I write my poetry in standard English, thus taking away the very appeal it had for the common man.
As I began to find my way in Edinburgh, I discovered the many clubs where lawyers and merchants carried on the old genial traditions of their city. Being a fellow Freemason helped me greatly with my introductions and acceptions. In the freedom of this setting, I must say that my imagination and wit, when it begins to play, respected no boundaries. An improper folk-song could be made more brilliantly improper as well as a halting one could be made lyric.
But I assure you that all the tales and anecdotes you hear about my stay in Edinburgh are indeed distortions of the truth. Sometimes they are just playful but most times less than congenial. As far as my poetry is concerned, I was hoping to make some money from the further publication of my poems and songs. I was also seeking patronage to make my life easier. But most of all I was seeking appreciation and mostly hopefully, fame.
I then met a fellow named Creech, a printer and publisher. He proposed that he assume legal copyright of all my literary work and also agreed to publish a second book of my poems and songs. I consented to his plan but that was a bad decision which I still regret to this day. His paltry delay of payment kept me in the city until interest in my presence had waned, until all the pleasure of publication and fame evaporated in bitterness and disgust. I left Edinburgh without greater depletion of my capital, but totally worn down and without the enthusiasm to create.
I noticed that you were leaving the Excise Office. What is that all about?
My literary profits never realized enough money to support my way of life, meager as it is. I also need ensure that I can provide for my wife Jean Armour, my children and settle the various debts and suits that I have accrued. Through the good offices of my great friend Mrs McElhose, I was able to obtain a Government commission in the Excise Tax Service. At that time, on the advice of a friend - and, I may add, against my own better judgement, I rented a farm in Ellisland for 3 years. That proved to be a further drain on my finances as well as my physical and emotional energies. It was indeed another tough period in my life, but unlike earlier ones, my health was not what it used to be. My work for the Excise Office has barely sustained me even during the present famine, and I find I must once again rely on the help of friends.
Richard, you have been kind to listen to me as I recounted parts of my life that have been painful to recall. Thank you, but I must go now as I am sure that Doctor Mackenzie is wondering where I am - if perhaps I have succumbed on the way!
No, Rab, it is me who must thank you for so generously sharing so much of your life story. I hope that the good doctor can bring you fast relief and improved good health. Please extend my regards to Jean and the children. I understand that Jean is again with child. I wish her a safe delivery.
