thi six a clock nyooz
Tom Leonard was born in Glasgow and writes poetry in the Glaswegian dialect, the "langwij"of his city. The excerpt below is taken from "Intimate Voices", a selection of his poems from 1965 onwards. The book also includes an essay on "the nature of hierarchical diction in Britain." Despite receiving widespread acclaim, the book was banned from many school libraries when it appeared in 1984. But times change, and today Leonard's poetry is compulsory study for an English literature GCSE qualification.
Unrelated Incidents No. 3
this is thi
six a clock
news thi
man said n
thi reason
a talk wia
BBC accent
iz coz yi
widny wahnt
mi ti talk
aboot thi
trooth wia
voice lik
wanna yoo
scruff. if
a toktaboot
thi trooth
lik wanna yoo
scruff yi
widny thingk
it wuz troo.
jist wanna yoo
scruff tokn.Tom Leonard (1944- )
Although socialism has been rejected by most of those who have been subjected to it, Tom Leonard is a socialist. His beliefs, however, are said to correspond with George Orwell's definition of socialism as "common human decency." By the way, Leonard's poem above can be found in Rotten English, a new collection of writing from around the world edited by Dohra Ahmad.
