So yesterday I had the long awaited first supervisory panel meeting for my Ph D and it was basically OK. There were some good suggestions and questions, the dreaded concept of methodology was directly confronted and all in all I didn't come away from it feeling as thick as a brick. Which is a definite improvement on my previous encounter with my prospective supervisors to be.
But I did get asked, for the nth time, why I want to do a Ph D on George Campbell Hay. I find this intensely annoying. When I went on my induction last autumn there were people preparing to do doctorates in Health Service Mapping, Seabed Sediment, the economics of recycling in rural communities and water quality in restored peat lands. And a hundred quid says none of them were asked why they wanted to research their particular topic, so I really don't see why I should be interrogated about my motivation either.
I gave my standard answer yesterday which was that I think GCH is a great but unfairly neglected poet and someone should write something saying so. I can't help it if some enthusiasm and even maybe a little bit of fervour creeps into my tone when I say this. I know it goes down like a lead brick and I try my best to sound detached but you know, I'm not that detached and obviously, however hard I try, I'm not that good at pretending to be either.
I don't know what They consider to be the right answer to this question. I suspect it's something along the lines of 'well he's not a bad poet and no-one else has written about him so it looks like my chance to fill in the gap on the library shelf and make some sort of academic name for myself.'
Well if that's the right answer it's not one I can ever give. I can't write about something if I'm not engaged with it. But given the shuffly silence that ensues when I let even the smallest sense of enthusiasm creep in I'm certainly not ever going to tell Them the real reasons I want to study this man.
The thing is Hay speaks to me like no other poet ever has. And although there are some elements of his character that are alien to me (like his drinking) there are other parts of him that I just know. I know the romanticism that is attracted to the golden world conjured up by the poetry of the Gaelic Bards. I know the excitement of encountering new languages and seeing connections between them and the ones you already know. I know the impossibility of doing things the easy way. I know how it feels to be torn at an impressionable age from one culture and thrown into another one that's totally alien and just have to cope because everyone around you is in the same unhappy boat. I know the visceral hatreds of late adolescence, and if I am sometimes shocked at his vituperative expressions of hatred of the English I remember how in in my mid teens I hated everyone with the surname Campbell in much the same way, and with much less cause. I know the darkness of depression and the terrors of feeling both superfluous to the world and rudderless within it. I know how it is possible to go along with other people's plans for you until one day you wake up to what they're doing in your name and have to stop them whatever the cost. And I know what it is to be part of a group making brave declarations of how you'll all act if xyz happens; and then when it comes to pass discovering that you're the only one standing with your head above the parapet, because all your outspoken mates have melted away into conformity and you're the only one left exposed because you're trying to stay true to your ideals.
GCH said over and over again 'You either mean it or you don't', and as a motto for a way to live it's one of the best I know. Despite the many problems he encountered in his life he strived to live by it. At different times it cost him his freedom, his sanity, his self respect, and even his poetic voice but he struggled to live up to his own standards as best he could. That takes a courage and an unquenchable spark of hope that not many people can find in themselves. It takes a courage that moves and humbles any onlooker with a spark of human sympathy in their heart or mind.
So how can I not be drawn to this clever passionate poet who wrote poetry of such poise and beauty and yet struggled so bravely and so often unsuccessfully to keep a grasp on the world that surrounded him? Who would not be moved to pity and heartache by the description of him withdrawn and institutionalised, rebuffing all the overtures from friends and family who wished only to lead him out of the darkness of his isolation, a darkness that as far as they could tell he was not even aware of. The man who as a youth had spent his days walking on the hill and his nights fishing on the loch spent twelve years incarcerated in a mental hospital and when he was finally released could no longer cope with the life he was released into. Who can know all this and not cry despairingly with his mother as she contemplated her son's intractable mental struggle and wrote 'my grief is for the tragedy of youth and for my happy laughing boy'. Who can look at this marred and broken and shadowed life and not weep when they read that he himself described that very life as 'a stay brae an' bonnie'.
When you write about a poet you rightly consider inspiration and craft and technique and subject matter and influence and context and you write necessarily with your head. I can do that. And I don't want to give anyone grounds for accusing me of writing with emotion rather than intellect and despising me for it or marking me down for it. That's why I strive to keep enthusiasm out of my voice when I talk to Them.
And when, DV, I climb onto a platform in 2018 with a floppy velvet hat on my head and receive a piece of paper that gives me the right to call myself Dr I still won't tell Them the truth about why I'm there. Not to redress the critical imbalance. Not to fill the gap on the library shelf. But to celebrate a brave and troubled soul who conjures beauty in my mind and whispers solace in my ear.
