|
|
Tom Young
Scotland
E-mail Address: yougtom@blueyonder.co.uk
Please include the word 'POETRY' in the subject line of any email you send.
Why write poetry, Poet?
Why do I write poetry? I cannot help it, it just pours out of me,
I simply have to get it out of my system and I get a great feeling of
satisfaction every time I complete another poetic effort, political, comical, lyrical or profound.
The older I get, the more I want to write
and I am truly quite astonished at the interest so many people take in verse nowadays.
I still go out dancing at various clubs around Fife and about
three years ago a Leven lady asked me at a dance if I could do an audio tape
of Rabbie Burns and I said, "Burns, me dear, I have never read him for years."
But on the way home I bought a mike, took it home, got out my moth-eaten copy
of Burns verse and on my very unprofessional equipment I made a tape of
Burns, - the usual things, "Immortal Memory", "Tam O' Shanter", "The Jolly Beggars"
etc. I also sang a few of the Burns songs that I knew the music to, and she sent
it off to her son who teaches in Spain.
He duly took it out to Boston to his friend, Charlie Rodgers. It seems he was the one who wanted to hear Burns
stuff in the Scots tongue, as you cannot get the accent from a book.
Charlie told me the last time he called, that the tape is nearly worn out now.
How did you get started writing poetry?
I met an ex R A F type in the pub after I was demobilised from the army after the war, he was a bit of a Burns fanatic
and after we got to know each other, we found we were on the same wavelength
and started writing verses to each other, some serious and some comical, so
I suppose you could say that he started me off writing verse and I have been
making up verses on and off ever since.
Who were your influences?
In my school days and in my youth I used to read Keats, Shelley, Byron
and Wordsworth, as well as our national bard, of course.
Publications
My daughter made a website up for me recently and if you logon to
http://tomyoungverses.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/ you can read some of
them. I have personally published about 6 books on my computer under various titles.
I have had about a dozen poems published in national publications since about 1948 and the local paper, "The
Leader", has been including my verse under the name Tom for about 3 years now and have published about a 100 of them.
Examples of poetry.
|
Who are the Scots?
John Muir
(1834 - 1914)
Born in Dunbar, he was a Naturalist and Conservationist who emigrated to America where in 1876, he founded the U.S. National Parks at Yosemite, Sequoia and established other forest conservation systems. In 1908, the US Government established the Muir Woods National Monument of redwood trees in California in his honour.
|
|