A poem in two parts for Poet’s Corner by an unnamed delusional idolater
Shehzar Doja
Commentary
It was fascinating at the start of this project to be sent copies of the patient magazine published by the Asylum, The Gartnavel Gazette, dating from 1854. As the composition of this response emerged, I began thinking intermittently of the connective thread that brought me to live and study in Scotland in the first place. Of boundaries, barriers and collectives. Language plays such a vital role in the way others in any society are perceived. In the wake of recent societal animosity and destructive terminology which have been set as backdrop, there appears to be a resurgence of hope embodied within the collective spirit aspiring to build a better world. This new world however, lest we forget, was built upon the backs of the British Empire stretching its patriarchal arms to so many corners of the world. Glasgow, and Scotland, played an important role in that subsequent rise.
The magazines reflecting patient life at the Asylum, set against world events and contemporary preoccupations, were a rich resource to work with. Approaching the poem, I made an honest attempt to consider the variations and nuances that stood out from the fragile pages, emitted from within the context of The Gartnavel Gazette itself and the time and space in which it was produced. Did the closed insular spaces and the carceral design of the buildings and location, bear any ramification on some of the rhetoric placed within? And how would that juxtapose the narrative of the words’ placement within the context of the wider world and others referred to at the time?
I do not know the exact date, but I was told my great-grandfather had attended a course at a university in Scotland whilst growing up. This would have been close to the date of the magazines’ production. In fact, I believe he had come to study print and publication here, so he may even have been familiar with this publication. Unlikely, perhaps, but I am sure he would have encountered similar threads of journalism throughout those years. How might he have responded? How might he have felt and responded as a subject of the Empire then, navigating fine margins of maintaining civil dialogue and perhaps feeling rendered out of place by virtue of birthplace alone?
All of these considerations affected my choices in writing the piece, as tribute to those living at Gartnavel Asylum in previous generations.
[Editions of The Gartnavel Gazette from 1854, HB13/2/136]
Shehzar Doja is Founder/Editor-in-Chief of The Luxembourg Review and Poetry Reviews Editor at Gutter. His poetry and translations have appeared in Poetry Wales, Pratik, Modern Poetry in Translation, Voice and Verses, Poems from the Edge of Extinction, The Centenary Collection for Edwin Morgan, Fundstücke-Trouvailles and more. His poetry collection Drift was published by UPL/Monsoon Letters in 2016 and he co-edited I am a Rohingya: Poetry from the Camps and Beyond (Arc, 2019) with James Byrne which won Poetry Book Society’s inaugural ‘World Choice’ award.
A poem in two parts for Poet’s Corner by an unnamed delusional idolater
Shehzar Doja
Commentary
It was fascinating at the start of this project to be sent copies of the patient magazine published by the Asylum, The Gartnavel Gazette, dating from 1854. As the composition of this response emerged, I began thinking intermittently of the connective thread that brought me to live and study in Scotland in the first place. Of boundaries, barriers and collectives. Language plays such a vital role in the way others in any society are perceived. In the wake of recent societal animosity and destructive terminology which have been set as backdrop, there appears to be a resurgence of hope embodied within the collective spirit aspiring to build a better world. This new world however, lest we forget, was built upon the backs of the British Empire stretching its patriarchal arms to so many corners of the world. Glasgow, and Scotland, played an important role in that subsequent rise.
The magazines reflecting patient life at the Asylum, set against world events and contemporary preoccupations, were a rich resource to work with. Approaching the poem, I made an honest attempt to consider the variations and nuances that stood out from the fragile pages, emitted from within the context of The Gartnavel Gazette itself and the time and space in which it was produced. Did the closed insular spaces and the carceral design of the buildings and location, bear any ramification on some of the rhetoric placed within? And how would that juxtapose the narrative of the words’ placement within the context of the wider world and others referred to at the time?
I do not know the exact date, but I was told my great-grandfather had attended a course at a university in Scotland whilst growing up. This would have been close to the date of the magazines’ production. In fact, I believe he had come to study print and publication here, so he may even have been familiar with this publication. Unlikely, perhaps, but I am sure he would have encountered similar threads of journalism throughout those years. How might he have responded? How might he have felt and responded as a subject of the Empire then, navigating fine margins of maintaining civil dialogue and perhaps feeling rendered out of place by virtue of birthplace alone?
All of these considerations affected my choices in writing the piece, as tribute to those living at Gartnavel Asylum in previous generations.
[Editions of The Gartnavel Gazette from 1854, HB13/2/136]
Shehzar Doja is Founder/Editor-in-Chief of The Luxembourg Review and Poetry Reviews Editor at Gutter. His poetry and translations have appeared in Poetry Wales, Pratik, Modern Poetry in Translation, Voice and Verses, Poems from the Edge of Extinction, The Centenary Collection for Edwin Morgan, Fundstücke-Trouvailles and more. His poetry collection Drift was published by UPL/Monsoon Letters in 2016 and he co-edited I am a Rohingya: Poetry from the Camps and Beyond (Arc, 2019) with James Byrne which won Poetry Book Society’s inaugural ‘World Choice’ award.