Len Pennie's Poyums of Power | The Culture Scene | BBC Scotland

if I look back and I think where did I start with poetry and where I am now it doesn't Mak sense to me the more people that take chances on me the more that I'm starting to feel like this is a this is a thing and this is meant to be you know I'm I'm meant to do this CU I enjoy it so much hi friends I'm in my local library filming a very secret project being around all these great I wanted something to bring me joy and nothing brings me joy like Scots being around all these books have sh I'm Len

Penny and I'm a poet she loved and lost and hurt and bled and on her pain a dragon fed and grew I used to read a lot wrapping around her mind increased in length I would always have my nose stuck in a book which really annoyed my family were trying to communicate with me and they just be met with a a paper and cardboard intermediary we to ourselves a cany BL wee Lea the H speared at me about some politics and weather I think that growing up in a kind of Scots speaking household was very influent

ial to the way I approach language and the way I approach communication it was the language that was being used in such a natural and authentic way that instilled within me such a a pride and a joy and a love for Scots and that's one of the reasons I started the Scots word of the day was because I wanted to share those words all right L Scots word of the day today is ply this is an adjective or a describing word which when used figuratively to refer to a person means eratic unpredictable or hard

to play I started the Scots word of the day 1,38 days ago all right lad Scots word the's day is mind this is a phenomenal verb which is two similar but distinct meanings you can mind I had just left an incredibly abusive situation and I was very depressed all right Lads Scots phrase the day today is Dre weird this seems a bit complex but we'll break it down to Dre is to endure or suffer year is a possessive pronoun meaning year it's hard to articulate how I was feeling at that point I had very

low self-esteem I had very little sense of self or self-confidence that feels so much better and I don't look back at at that person and think oh that's awful you look so bad you know you're so I look at that and think even in that moment when you thought that the world was just coming down around you you looked up and you saw something and you thought I can I can I can bring some Joy here I can I can find my own Joy I'm telling my story it's mine after all and this masterpiece won't write itsel

f what started as tragedy turned into hope the weight of which buckles the Shelf I put I into life and then life into me as I reconstruct what was once gone I stoked every Amber my heart could remember and I nourished the Flames till they Sha up maracker is a Storyteller composer or I usually keep it if it's a noun I usually keep it with an adjective and uh I usually say like she's a adjective noun like she's a br up maker like she's a good Storyteller yeah but then I could I could I could I cou

ld give it like an intensifier as well so something like she's an aie BR up marker oh that's good or she's a get up Mar or something which offie BR I'm I'm partial to yeah I think go with that you think that's sounds good right here we go being around all these books has put me in mind of a Great Scots word upm marer this is a noun or a naming word which refers to a Storyteller and an example sentence is she's an offe BR maker are we bit s she's an AE BR up maker one more time just you and me do

esn't matter if you didn't get it right the first time she's an AE BR up maker as soon as my videos started to get seen by a wider audience than my immediate circle there were some negative comments I have a very hard time identifying when someone is acting in bad faith so I was taking it all at face [Music] value people were talking about my tits and the the fact they're uneven and the fact they're saggy it's very easy to listen to people saying things about your appearance it's very easy to li

sten to people saying things about your personality and your voice and your your your character and the way you are as a person you can you can very easily start repeating that [Music] yourself you know we're going level deeper and I'll just despise everything about myself and and that's a really really awful place to be in when you've already got a brain that's like I feel like you should [Music] die it was awful and I felt awful and I was in such a horrible place looking up at the joy thinking

well that's why I started how do we get back to that it's been a long process but getting back to the The Joy has been about not ignoring them because these are all thoughts that are rattling around inside my head doing something productive with it channeling it into art making it rhyme even just take some of the power away from it and it makes it productive then we must find a segue into the book plug so the book poems I I didn't actually set out to WR I had all these desperate poems over the

past two years that I had written and it was a real pleasure to be able to kind of weave a narrative into that the themes I would say are human rights women's rights linguistic rights language rights the rights of sort of minoritized communities but also it's it's about my right to be happy you know and and recovering from abuse and recovering from horrible situations and been able to process those in a healthy way I wanted to write this book to shed a light on topics but also to let people know

that what they're going through matters what they're going through is not something that they should have to endure alone this for me is not a book about abuse this for me is a book about connection I just cannot wait it's so nice to be able to to feel like I might be welcome there as an author like as an author I consider myself a poet but I have a book now so I guess I'm an author so the fact that it's it's a national library of Scotland and there's so many authors who've been there who got t

heir work there and like I'm going to be there too she's brilliant performer I just I just think the way she uses Scots words is remarkable and to be um praised and I just this should be in schools you know she's speaking to Ordinary People about ordinary things there has always been Scots writers but because of people like Len we're actually getting this a Revival um and we're we're hearing new stuff so I think she's given us more Vis visibility um which is which is [Music] great I just want a

nice happy life I think I'll always go through periods of depression and I'll always experience sadness and and pain but that that Joy um hasn't it's not a new thing it's it's not a new thing but it it it feels closer like at the start when I was thinking how can I how can I find something that will bring me joy I think I think i' I think I found it and I I just want to just not let go I just want to be here for as long as possible now just enjoy it for for all the years that I'm allowed to [Mus

ic] have