Liz Lochhead
Poetry
Higher English
The Bargain
My Rival’s House
Last Supper
View of Scotland/Love Poem
Some old photographs
For My Grandmother Knitting
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Scottish poet and playwright Liz Lochhead was born in 1947, in Motherwell,
Lanarkshire. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art and taught art at schools in
Glasgow and Bristol. She was Writer in Residence at Edinburgh University (1986-7) and
Writer in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1988. Her first collection of
poems, Memo for Spring, was published in 1972 and won a Scottish Arts Council Book
Award. Her poetry has been published in a number of collections including Penguin
Modern Poets 4 (1995).
A performer as well as a poet, her revue Sugar and Spite was staged in 1978 with
Marcella Evaristi. Liz Lochhead travelled to Canada in the same year, after being
selected for a Scottish Writers Exchange Fellowship, and she became a full-time writer,
performance poet and broadcaster.
Her plays include Blood and Ice (1982), first performed at the Edinburgh Traverse in
1982; Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (1989), first performed by
Communicado Theatre Company at the 1987 Edinburgh festival; Dracula (1989); Cuba
(1997), a play for young people commissioned by the Royal National Theatre for the BT
National Connections Scheme; and Perfect Days (1998), a romantic comedy, first
performed at the Edinburgh festival in 1998.
She translated and adapted Molière's Tartuffe (1985) into Scots, premiered at the
Edinburgh Royal Lyceum in 1987, and the script of her adaptation of Euripides' Medea
(2000) for Theatre Babel in 2000 won the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year
Award. In her play Misery Guts (2002), based on Molière's The Misanthrope, the action
is updated to the modern-day Scottish Parliament. Her work for television includes
Latin for a Dark Room, a short film, screened as part of the BBC Tartan Shorts season at
the 1994 Edinburgh International Film Festival, and The Story of Frankenstein for
Yorkshire Television. Her collection of poetry, The Colour of Black and White: Poems
1984-2003, was published in 2003 and a romantic comedy for the stage, Good Things, in
2006.
Liz Lochhead lives in Glasgow. She was awarded an honorary degree by the University
of Edinburgh in 2000. In 2005, she was made Poet Laureate of Glasgow, and in 2011,
became Scots Makar. Her latest book is A Choosing: The Selected Poetry of Liz
Lochhead, published in 2011.
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The Bargain
The river in January is fast and high.
a glint in your flinty Northern face again
You and I
just once. Oh I know it’s cold
are off to the Barrows.
and coming down
Gathering police-horses twitch and fret
and no we never lingered long among
at the Tron end of London Road and
the Shipbank traders.
Gallowgate.
Paddy’s Market
The early kick-off we forgot
stank too much today
has us, three thirty, rubbing the wrong way
the usual wetdog reek rising
against all the ugly losers
from piles of old damp clothes.
underneath the arches
getting ready to let fly
where the two rivers meet.
Somebody absolutely steamboats he says on
sweet warm wine
January, and we’re
swigged plaincover from a paper bag
looking back, looking forward,
squats in a puddle with nothing to sell
don’t know which way
but three bent forks a torn
calendar (last year’s)
but the boy
and a broken plastic sandal.
with three beautiful Bakelite
So we hadn’t the stomach for it today.
Bush radios for sale in Meadow’s Minimarket is
We don’t deserve a bargain then!
buttonpopping stationhopping he
No connoisseur can afford to be too scrupulous
doesn’t miss a beat sing along
it’s easy
about keeping his hands clean.
to every changing tune
There was no doubt
the rare
the beautiful
and the bugle-beaded the real antique
Yes today we’re in love aren’t we?
cheap
with the whole splintering city
among the rags and drunks
its big quick river
you could easily take to the cleaners.
wintry bridges
its brazen black Victorian heart.
So what if every other tenement
At the Barrows everything has its price
wears its hearth on its gable end?
no haggling
All I want
this boy knows his radios.
is my glad eye to catch
Pure Utility
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believe me
dirt
and what that’s worth these days.
I rub my sleeve
and anything within a decade of art deco
on a rusty Chinese saucer
a rarity you’ll pay through your nose for.
till the gilt shows through.
The man with the patter and all these curtain
Oh come on
lengths
we’d not let our affection for the slightly
in fibreglass is flabbergasted at the bargain
cracked
and says so in so many words.
trap us into such expenditure again.
Jesus, every other
Oh even if it is a bargain
arcade around here’s
we won’t buy.
a ‘Fire Surround Boutique’ –
The stallholder says I’ll be the death of her
and we watch the struggling families –
she says see January
father carrying hearth home
it’s been the doldrums the day.
we promised
mother wound up with kids.
All the couples we know fall apart
And it’s packing up time
or have kids.
with the dark coming early
and as cold as the river.
Oh we’ve never shouldered much.
By the bus stop I show you
We’ll stick to small ikons for our home –
the beady bag and the maybe rosewood box
as long as they’re portable –
with the inlaid butterfly and the broken catch.
a dartboard a peacock feather
you’ve bought a record by the Shangri-las
a stucco photoframe.
a pin-stripe waistcoat that needs a stitch
it just won’t get
We queue in a blue haze of hot fat
and a book called Enquire
Within – Upon Everything.
for Danny’s Do-Nuts that grit
our teeth with granules of sugar
The raw cold gets colder.
I keep
There doesn’t seem to be a lot to say.
losing you and finding you –
I wish we could either mend things
two stalls away you thumb
or learn to throw them away.
through a complete set of manuals for
primary teachers in the thirties
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This poem is typical of Lochhead. It very much combines her Scottish sense of pragmatism with her craftsmanship as a
wordsmith to create a meditation on a relationship that has reached a crossroads.
The speaker in the poem describes a day out with her lover at the famous Barrows market in the east end of Glasgow.
This experience is used as a wider metaphor to explore and reflect upon her relationship.
The title of the poem refers not just to the bargains the couple seek out at the market, but to the bargaining that occurs
within any relationship.
Themes and links to other poems
This poem deals with a relationship that seems to have reached a crossroads. Lochhead uses a depiction of a day at a
flea market to reveal the problems in the relationship.
The poem also illustrates Lochhead’s obvious love and affection for Glasgow as she brings its landmarks and characters
to life.
This poem would make a good comparison piece for View of Scotland/Love Poem as it too deals with a romantic
relationship against the backdrop of the city at a specific time of year.
Questions
1. This poem strongly evokes a sense of Glasgow. How does it do that?
2. When do you as a reader first become aware of the problems within the relationship?
3. How does this poem link with other Lochhead poems you have studied?
4. How is Lochhead’s sentence structure and layout particularly effective in this poem?
5. What do you think the final two lines of the poem mean?
6. The book that they leave with, Enquire Within – Upon Everything, is a how-to book for domestic life.
Why do you think this is mentioned?
7. Do you think ‘The Bargain’ is an appropriate title for the poem? Justify your answer.
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My Rival’s House
is peopled with many surfaces.
Ormolu and gilt, slipper satin,
lush velvet couches,
cushions so stiff you cant sink in.
Tables polished clear enough to see distortions in.
We take our shoes off at her door,
shuffle stocking-soled, tiptoe – the parquet floor
is beautiful and its surface must
be protected. Dustcover, drawn shade,
won’t let the surface colour fade.
Silver sugar-tongs and silver salver,
my rival serves us tea.
She glosses over him and me.
I am all edges, a surface, a shell
and yet my rival thinks she means me well.
But what squirms beneath her surface I can tell.
Soon, my rival
capped tooth, polished nail
will fight, fight foul for her survival.
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Deferential, daughterly, I sip
and thank her nicely for each bitter cup.
And I have much to thank her for.
This son she bore –
first blood to her –
never, never can escape scot free
the sour potluck of family.
And oh how close
this family that furnishes my rival’s place.
Lady of the house.
Queen bee.
She is far more unconscious,
far more dangerous than me.
Listen, I was always my own worst enemy.
She has taken even this from me.
She dishes up her dreams for breakfast.
Dinner, and her salt tears pepper our soup.
She won’t
give up.
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In this poem, Lochhead considers the interesting dynamic of specific female relationships. As the central concerns of the
poem are gradually revealed, the 'rival' of the poem’s title turns out to have a much closer relationship with the speaker
than we first thought.
In the poem the speaker describes a visit to the home of her lover’s mother for tea. The atmosphere is immediately
loaded with tension. Both women implicitly understand the competitive nature of their relationships as they battle for
the affection of the son.
The forced civility and politeness of the visit only serves to emphasise the strain between the two women. The object of
their competitive affection, meanwhile, seems utterly oblivious to the underlying tension.
Themes and links to other poems
Thematically, this poem reveals the often uncomfortable rivalry that can exist between a mother and her son’s partner.
Lochhead draws the stereotypical, hectoring and domineering mother-in-law but instead of using it as a humorous
device, she creates a presence that is altogether much more malevolent and threatening.
In doing so, she reminds us of some women who seem either unwilling or unable to let their sons go.
This poem then links well with Last Supper since it too paints an unflattering yet truthful portrayal of the nature of some
female relationships.
Like Last Supper, which looks at how some friendships between women can be toxic and corrosive, so too My Rival’s
House shows how the traditional mother and son relationship, often idealised in literature, can turn into something
malignant and oppressive.
Questions
1. In what ways does the house seem uncomfortable?
2. How do we know who the rival is?
3. Why would we compare the son to the house? Would this be effective?
4. What words describe the mother-in-law? What does this tell us in the opinion of the speaker?
5. Do you think the speaker is being fair?
6. In what way does rhyme contribute to the tone of the poem?
7. This poem is conversational. What evidence is there for this?
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Last Supper
She is getting good and ready to renounce
his sweet flesh.
Not just for lent. (For
Ever)
But meanwhile she is assembling the ingredients
for their last treat, the proper
feast (after all
didn’t they always
eat together
rather more than rather well?)
So here she is tearing foliage, scrambling
the salad, maybe lighting candles even, anyway
stepping back to admire the effect of
the table she’s made (and oh yes now
will have to lie on) the silverware,
the nicely aldente vegetables, the cooked goose.
He could be depended on to bring the bottle
plus betrayal with a kiss.
Already she was imagining it done with, this feast, and
exactly
what kind of leftover hash she’d make of it
among friends, when it was just
The Girls, when those three met again.
What very good soup
she could render from the bones,
then something substantial, something extra
tasty if not elegant.
Yes, there they’d be cackling around the cauldron,
spitting out the gristlier bits
of his giblets;
gnawing on the knucklebone of some
intricate irony;
getting grave and dainty at the
petit-gout mouthfuls of reported speech.
‘That’s rich!’ they’d splutter,
munching the lies, fat and sizzling as sausages.
Then they’d sink back
gorged on truth
and their own savage integrity,
sleek on it all, preening
like corbies, their bright eyes blinking
satisfied
till somebody would get hungry
and go hunting again.
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In this poem, Lochhead challenges our usual perceptions of women who have been betrayed by a partner who has
been unfaithful.
Instead of presenting the woman as a victim, she is depicted preparing a final meal to mark the end of the relationship.
She imagines herself and her girlfriends later gorging themselves on the lies and infidelity of her ex-lover.
In doing so, she presents an unflattering yet truthful depiction of the nature of some female friendships.
Themes and links to other poems
While this poem touches on the effects of infidelity, this is not really a central concern. Indeed, here the woman who has
suffered the betrayal is depicted not as a victim but as a predator. She converts her lover’s unfaithfulness and lies into
something that can provide sustenance not just for herself but for her friends. The overriding theme then is the sinister
and negative aspects of some female relationships. Often society elevates sisterhood and sororities into something
empowering and noble, yet here Lochhead exposes the corrosive, toxic effects of some friendships.
The behaviour of the women is loaded with misandry and their contempt for men is almost tangible. The conclusion of
the poem, in which men are depicted as prey to be hunted is especially revealing. Lochhead forces us to confront our
preconceived notions of female relationships. She conveys a facet of these friendships which, while perhaps
unappetising, is nonetheless true.
There are thematic links between this poem and My Rival’s House.
Questions
1. Why is ‘Last Supper’ an appropriate title for this poem?
2. Identify and explain the puns in this piece.
3. Describe the women as they are portrayed in the poem. What kind of women do you think they would be in real life?
4. Select an image from the poem and explain its effectiveness.
5. What do you think is the message of the poem and why do you think that?
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View of Scotland/Love Poem
Down on her hands and knees
at ten at night on Hogmanay,
my mother still giving it elbow grease
jiffywaxing the vinolay. (This is too
ordinary to be nostalgia.) On the kitchen table
a newly opened tin of sockeye salmon.
Though we do not expect anyone,
the slab of black bun,
petticoat-tails fanned out
on bone china.
‘Last year it was very quiet…’
Mum’s got her rollers in with waveset
and her well-pressed good dress
slack across the candlewick upstairs.
Nearly half-ten already and her not shifted!
If we’re to even hope to prosper
this midnight must find us
how we would like to be.
A new view of Scotland
with a dangling calendar
is propped under last year’s,
ready to take it’s place.
Darling, it’s thirty years since
anybody was able to trick me,
December thirty-first, into
‘looking into a mirror to see a lassie
wi as minny heids as days in the year’ –
and two already since,
familiar strangers at a party,
we did not know that we were
the happiness we wished each other
when the Bells went, did we?
All over the city
off-licenses pull down their shutters,
people make for where they want to be
to bring the new year in.
In high rises and tenements
sunburst clocks tick
on dusted mantelshelves.
Everyone puts on their best spread of plenty
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(for to even hope to prosper
this midnight must find us
how we would like to be).
So there’s a bottle of sickly liqueur
among the booze in the alcove,
golden crusts on steak pies
like quilts on a double bed.
And this is where we live.
There is no time like the
present for a kiss.
As the split title infers, this poem is a combination of Lochhead’s own memories of Hogmanay in the 1950s and a love
poem written for her husband.
Despite its distinctly autobiographical nature, the poem is universal as it deals with experiences and traditions that
many people in Scotland associate with this time of year.
Themes and links to other poems
This poem deals with the relationship between the past and the present and how our experiences and memories
combine to inform our characters, values and ideals.
She resists the temptation to become nostalgic in order to describe specific memories in accurate detail. This creates a
much more honest and truthful poem.
The specific traditions and superstitions associated with Scotland’s Hogmanay celebrations are also explored, especially
in regard to how they help to create a link between the past and present.
This poem would make a useful comparison piece for The Bargain and Some Old Photographs.
Questions
1. Why does the poem have two titles? Why is it split like this?
2. Describe the register of the speaker in this poem. Why do you think this has been chosen? Are there
any changes?
3. Identify a main theme in this poem and give reasons for your answer.
4. How do we know this is a love poem? What is it a love poem for?
5. Who is speaking in the poem and to whom?
6. In what ways do the word choice and imagery in the poem convey a positive picture of Scotland?
7. What impact does the phrase ‘jiffywaxing the vinolay’ have on the reader? Why?
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Some old photographs
weather evocative as scent
the romance of dark storm clouds
in big skies over the low wide river
of long shadows and longer shafts of light
of smoke
fabulous film-noir stills of Central Station
of freezing fog silvering the chilled, stilled parks
of the glamorous past
where drops on a rainmate are sequins
in the lamplight, in the black-and-white
your young, still-lovely mother laughs, the
hem of her sundress whipped up
by a wind on a beach before you were born
all the Dads in hats
are making for Central at five past five
in the snow, in the rain, in the sudden what-a-scorcher,
in the smog, their
belted dark overcoats white-spattered by the starlings
starlings swarming
in that perfect and permanent cloud
above what was
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never really this photograph
but always all the passing now
and noise and stink and smoky breath of George Square
wee boays, a duchess, bunting, there’s a
big launch on the Clyde
and that boat is yet to sail
Much of Lochhead’s identity and skill as a poet is derived from her innate sense of 'Scottishness' and her ability to really
capture and convey a specific sense of place.
Here the old photographs from the title are used as a catalyst to transport us back to a version of Glasgow from the past.
Lochhead uses familiar settings such as Glasgow Central Station and George Square to create an atmospheric poem that
invites us to reflect on the elusiveness of the passage of time.
Themes and links to other poems
This poem asks us to consider the paradox that old photographs present.
On one hand, they can forever capture a moment in history that we can return to again and again.
However given that we are in a constant state of change and flux we can never really return or go back to a moment
from the past.
In that sense then the photographs only emphasise the elusive and relentless nature of time – as soon as the image is
captured it is already gone and consigned to history.
This poem would make a useful comparison with View of Scotland/Love Poem and also The Bargain.
Questions
1. Do you think the language in this poem is mostly positive or negative? Justify your choice. Why do
you think this has been done?
2. Alliteration and sibilance are used frequently in this poem. Give examples and explain the effect.
3. What is the main message of this poem? Why do you think this?
4. Who do you think the speaker in the poem is and why?
5. Why do you think this poem was included in the pack when you think about the others? Give
reasons for your answer.
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For My Grandmother Knitting
There is no need they say
but the needles still move
their rhythms in the working of your hands
as easily
as if your hands
were once again those sure and skilful hands
of the fisher-girl.
You are old now
and your grasp of things is not so good
but master of your moments then
deft and swift
you slit the still-ticking quick silver fish.
Hard work it was too
of necessity.
But now they say there is no need
as the needles move
in the working of your hands
once the hands of the bride
with the hand-span waist
once the hands of the miner’s wife
who scrubbed his back
in a tin bath by the coal fire
once the hands of the mother
of six who made do and mended
scraped and slaved slapped sometimes
when necessary.
But now they say there is no need
the kids they say grandma
have too much already
more than they can wear
too many scarves and cardigans –
gran you do too much
there’s no necessity…
At your window you wave
them goodbye Sunday.
With your painful hands
big on shrunken wrists.
Swollen-jointed. Red. Arthritic. Old.
But the needles still move
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their rhythms in the working of your hands
easily
as if your hands remembered
of their own accord the patter
as if your hands had forgotten
how to stop.
In this poem, Lochhead asks us to consider the way the elderly are treated in our society and how the process of aging
changes our perceptions of individuals.
The poet uses the symbol of her grandmother’s hands to emphasise her changing roles over the course of her life, from
young fisher girl to the aged and infirm old lady that she has become.
Themes and link to other poems
This poem deals with the cruelty and reductiveness of the aging process and invites us to consider the relationships and
conflict between the past and the present.
To her own children, the poet’s grandmother is increasingly irrelevant to the world in which they live. For them,
knitting is a skill from a past era that they no longer appreciate. This contrasts with the world in which their mother
grew up, where knitting was a necessity, not a hobby.
By rejecting the scarves and cardigans which she produces, they unwittingly make her feel increasingly useless and
without purpose.
Through the image of skilful hands that knit, that once provided her livelihood, that scrubbed her husband’s back and
raised six children, the poet presents a different and much fuller depiction of her grandmother.
This poem would make a good comparison with Some Old Photographs.
Questions
1. What words are repeated in the poem and why?
2. What is the mood of the piece? Why do you think this?
3. Contrast the young woman with the old woman in the poem.
4. Comment on the use of punctuation in the poem.
5. How does the poem make you feel?
6. In what way is the title incongruous with the content of the poem?
7. Who do you think is speaking in the poem?
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