Simon Armitage proposes a UK poetry HQ (Laureate calls for UK to establish national ‘poetry headquarters’, 27 February). Scotland already has one: the Scottish Poetry Library. Founded by the formidable poet and organiser Tessa Ransford, it opened in 1984 (moving to an award-winning new building in 1998), and offers all the things (except a cafe) mentioned by Armitage. Countless poets have crossed its friendly threshold, from international figures to others (eg me) who live and love poetry just as much.
Tessa died in 2015 but her legacy is infinite. A line of hers graces my mother’s memorial inscription. Every four weeks I change my books, and recall those early days, when I was a busy volunteer helper, staffing and sorting, making a series of themed displays on mobile boards, discovering poets and poems, talking and sharing, coming alive.
As Armitage indicates, poetry is the HQ of the human race – an HQ under siege from populism, climate denial, inequality, racism, fundamentalism, and much else. Scotland is not a region of another country, but an ancient and modern land with an open and rightful identity. I voted yes to independence (and I am English), but Tessa didn’t wait, and just got on with it. I was there.
Jerry Peyton
Edinburgh
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