The Scottish Poetry Rose Garden by Catherine Eunson

Description

In 2003, Glasgow celebrated hosting the World Rose Convention with a suite of rose-themed cultural projects. One such was the founding of a new Scottish Poetry Rose Garden within Queens Park.

While wandering thereabouts during lockdown I had the idea of writing these poems. Perhaps creating a sonnet corona might even outfox the virus? As if to reinforce the whim, I noticed ‘The Corona’ building, overlooking the corner of the park at Shawlands Cross. You can see it on the cover. A few hundred yards in the other direction brings you to the site of the Battle of Langside, where, in 1568, Mary Queen of Scots’ army was defeated for the last time. Mary was the queen to whom the park was
dedicated in 1857. That was it, I was hooked.

A corona sonnet sequence is linked by the repetition of the last line of the preceding sonnet in the first line of the next. I’ve made these links quotations from each poet featured in the garden. As well as plaques of stone, there are 6 waste bins which have been individually named and dedicated. As it happens all the poets involved are historical, so no living poets were forced to wrestle with the mixed feelings involved in having Glasgow City Council honouring them with a rubbish bin!

– Catherine Eunson, August 2022

This scintillatingly sincere tribute is respectfully worthwhile without ever being dully worthy. The sonneteering, though deft and dense is never merely slick, exulting in the form’s customary paradoxes and playfulness with a warmth, wit and lightness of touch that would have delighted its picky dedicatees. What an inspired idea to plant a bower of verbal rosebuds amidst the bloom and blossom of Queen’s Park’s Poetry Garden. And a corona in time of Corona is both feat and salve, a garland in memoriam to the resilience and resolve of Scotland’s writers, and us all.
– Donny O’Rourke

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