It was a great surprise to be selected as the eighth Manx Bard last summer and I have spent the past year in a state of somewhat dazed astonishment.

A staff, robes and a hat with a feather in it: it’s as close to being a wizard as I’ll ever get! And indeed, poetry and words seem to possess a magic and power all of their own...

T.E. Brown’s ‘Dedication’ to the second series of his Fo’c’s’le Yarns was read out at the inauguration concert last summer.

I was struck and moved by its phrasing and by its idea that poetry could somehow bear witness to the ‘thus and thus’ of how we live.

I have conceived of the Manx Bard role as a public one and have attempted to bring poetry to bear on what I see as some of the contemporary realities on the island. It is in this sense that I think poetry has an important part to play in our shared life as a community, in our politics.

It has been a privilege to have the opportunity to reflect on nature, economics, Christian faith, heritage and the assisted dying debate, alongside a host of commissions and readings. This final poem is an attempt, in the spirit of Brown’s ‘Dedication’, to reflect on my year as Bard.

I am extremely grateful to Jackie Darbyshire for her help with these columns, to the Arts Council and Culture Vannin for their generous support, and especially to Bridge Carter and Annie Kissack in all they do for poetry on the island and for their kind encouragement.

Finally, I am grateful to all those who have hosted me, asked me to write poems, read and commented on them. I hope that poetry will continue to speak to modern life for challenge, inspiration and hope. I look forward to what the Ninth Manx Bard will do.

It has been a bright gem of delight, and never anything less than an immense privilege for which I give thanks.

Dedication, 2023

After T.E. Brown

A bard must sing, they say, but what’s the song?

How can a few brief words tell of all our days?

It’s not just to ancient heritage we belong

when we’re lost in a tangled modern maze

of global commerce. Is that right, or wrong?

Do we prefer the truth, or just what pays?

ʼTwas thus and thus they lived, the bards will sing:

from empire’s mass a better hope must spring.

Old questions: how we live, or how we die,

how can we tune our voices to the choir?

What was it made us laugh, or made us cry?

Resurgent now the soil holds Gaelic fire

and not just zero tax or money’s lie.

There is a greater justice calls us higher.

There is a beauty to the cliffs and sea

beyond my words, and all that words can be.

Time and its flood roll on but this remains:

a kindness that will bind us all together,

the word of gentle healing for our pains,

bright courage through the fair and stormy weather,

a rock that holds, a flame that never wanes

through all our humours, hopes and fine endeavour.

Here is an anchor for our Keltic soul:

the love that holds us free, and makes us whole.