Robert Burns
Yesterday (25th) marked 250 years since the birth of the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Celebrations took place across Scotland in honour of the bard most famous for the song “Auld Lang Syne”. Scots enjoyed the feast of Haggis which consists of a sheep’s heart and lungs chopped up with spices and oatmeal and stuffed into a sheep’s stomach which is joined with “neeps” (turnips) and “tatties” (potatoes). Before and after the appetising meal they took part in poetry readings, reciting some of Burns’ poems including ‘Coming Through The Rye’ and ‘A Red, Red Rose’. In Alloway, near Ayr, where Burns was born, thousands of people joined celebrations including a lantern procession and church service.
It wasn’t just in Scotland that celebrations took place. Across the globe, people came together to commemorate the much loved poet. Events took place south of the border as well as in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, China and Japan. The Scottish tourism board, which has recently invested in a celebrity fronted advertising campaign to draw expatriates back to their homeland and attract tourists and business, highlighted the excellence of Burns’ work and praised the literary gifts he had given to Scottish culture.
First Minister Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), described Burns as “Scotland’s human being of the millennium”.
Robert Burns was born on the 25th of January in the year 1759. Born into a poor family, it was his first love, Nelly Kirkpatrick, who first inspired him to write poetry. His work is noted for the heavy Scottish dialect which was in fact part of the title for the first of his published works, “Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect” in 1786. This collection included some of his most impressive poems including “To a Mouse” and “The Holy Fair”.
Like many poets in the past, Burns work gained fame after his premature death at the age of 37, of rheumatic fever. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Michael’s in Dumfries. It has been said he fathered up to 8 illegitimate children born from 5 different women. His wife Jean Burns gave birth to their 9th child together on the very day of his burial.
See also: Worldwide Toast to Robert Burns.
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Hope u upload some poems soon. love reading your poems and posts.
Thank you ‘Hmmm’. More will be posted soon.