Good to see Hugh Bryden’s poetry here. He was part of the very important anthology ‘Chuckies fir the Cairn’ edited by Rab Wilson for Luath Press but his poetry hasn’t had enough exposure. I suppose when you’re an imaginative and vibrant visual artist, it doesn’t matter so much! Hugh Bryden has accumulated a vast reputation for his own art and also his collaborations with poets such as Tom Pow, Donald Murray, Willie Hershaw, Liz Niven, Chrys Salt and others. He worked in his native Dumfries and Galloway as an Art Teacher for thirty years then began working as a full time artist and publisher. His imprint Roncadora Press has won national awards and his artists books are in national and international collections. He won the Callum MacDonald Award twice in cahoots with poet Hugh McMillan, on the second occasion, in Sheepenned, producing the only book in history ‘about sheep, by sheep and made from sheep’.
Here he speaks movingly about his son Ben, a saxophonist in New York. They’ve been parted like so many families, in the era of Covid.
Whin Ah get back tae NYC
Whin Ah git back tae NYC
Ah dinny ken whin that will be
But whin Ah dae Ah hope Ah may
See a the sichts Ah’ve still tae see.
In the Guggenheim
Ah’ll tak ma time
Slowly tak the spiral track
Up through the Art Ah’ll climb
Ah’ll hae a lark
In Bryant Park
Manhattan toon square they cry it there
We’ll picnic share til efter dark
Ah’m jist the fellay
Fir Katz’s Deli
Ah’ll hae whit she’s hivin, the life o Harry Ah’ll be livin
An come oot wi a full belly
Yir Bloomingdales
Kin keep thur sales
An Times Square, Ah’ll no be there
But Arthur Avenue nivver fails
In Mott Street
Ah’ll tak a seat
A Vietnamese will surely please
An fu o Pho Ah’ll be replete
New York, it’s alright
Stays open a night
But whit is mair, ma boy bides there
An how Ah long tae hold him tight.
Hugh’s Website:
The series is curated by Hugh McMillan, poet and writer, Ambassador for the Scottish Poetry Library in 2020 and Editor of its anthology ‘Best Scottish Poems’ for 2021.