Good grief – it’s August and this is my final column as The Manx Bard. I can’t believe how soon the year has flown past and hope that some of you, at least, have enjoyed reading my submissions.

At the end of the month, the Tenth Manx Bard will be unveiled and I will hand over my staff and official robes.

This final poem is very different from previous ones. It’s in three parts, which deliberately have different styles and formats. There’s also no fixed metre or rhyme and that is to show that contemporary poetry is not as constrained as traditional forms.

I still enjoy using the old formats – sonnets and villanelles in particular, but this piece contains two sections about being a poet and what it is (in my personal opinion) to be ‘Manx’. Please enjoy this unconventional approach.

Thank you for bearing with me over the past twelve months and all the best to whoever takes over from me.

My thanks and best wishes to you all.

1.What is a Bard?

Like an ancient tree, deep rooted, saturated with lore

A bard must be nurtured; allowed to mature their skills-full core.

From small beginnings, encouragement brings

the fully-fledged wordsmith whose crafted writing sings

of the wisdom and folklore suffusing their veins.

Love of culture and history and all that remains.

Their soul is the landscape, their blood flows with words

If cut they bleed poetry – too strong to be hurt.

A true Bard is special, there’s not that many left

If this world hadn’t any, it soon would be bereft.

2.Being Manx is a state of mind.

Being Manx is not just an accident of birth.

Some souls are lucky enough to be born here

Yet many Manx-born fail to appreciate the worth

of their being part of a treasured, rare, Biosphere.

Their Manx blood the same shade as a Laxey miner’s -

Red life-force shed - paint for the Lady Isabella?

Others care not for Illiam Dhone, or other reminders

of conflicts from the past. Times when Norse and Celts were

full-sworn enemies. Blood feuds endured. Those days have gone.

Now the disparate peoples have melded into one.

The Manx melting-pot concocted a truly precious brew

And those who choose to join it are privileged. It’s true. 

3.The Manx Bard

The Manx Bard must show the best of both these things:

The ability to make their emotive phrases sing.

It matters not what format, doesn’t need to rhyme.

The Manx Bard shares their love of language with their passion for this isle.

Creating, keeping safe, for future generations, a record of our Mann.

Who and what and why we’re here; our hopes, our fears, our joys.

I celebrate the new Manx Bard whose words will soon be heard.

May their words fill your heart and your soul remain Manx.

Greetings to poets the whole world over and Manannan’s Blessings, to one and all.

Boakesey - 2024