It may be an unfamiliar term but it's an appropriate one and I'm very proud to have been appointed
What's-its-name? Makar. Stress on first syllable. Which just means ? or meant, so can do again, one of the functions of poetry being to revivify language ? maker. The old Scots form of the word. As in: Mony a mickle wee bits of writing over the years maks "makar" a muckle deal of an honour to find oneself receiving a month after one's 63rd birthday . . . A five-year post as "Scotland's makar" - not "the Scots makar", which might imply writing exclusively in Scots, which I do occasionally, though more commonly in Scots-English, or, usually, in plain English. (What writer worth her salt would aspire to write in standard English?) "Laureate", because of its common usage, is understood better, but as it's actually an adjective describing the noun "poet", it is, come to think of it, itself rather a foosty antique construction.
(Robert Burns, the Poet Inebriate, the Poet Profligate, the Poet Destitute, the Poet Enamourate, the Poet Disconsolate, the Poet Plain Damn Greatest of the Great, as he'll be variously described this week up and down the land, was never, ever, the Poet Corporate, nothing as establishment as the Poet Laureate.) Note to self: phone great pal Carol Ann Duffy immediately for advice, because she wears that symbolic garland so very well, bringing brilliant, beautiful, accessible, truthful, unsolemn poetry, her own and that of others, into the mainstream of our lives, public and private, where it ought properly to be. Ah, there she is on television, speaking out passionately against the cuts and closures of public libraries. Without the poetry shelves of the public libraries there probably would be no poets, she's right. On Friday my first public engagement (though I was doing it already) was to open, with Alasdair Gray and the first minister, the new Burns Museum in Alloway, Ayr. Museums are very important but Not (though they don't attract as many tourists) More Important Than Libraries.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/jan/25/makar-liz-lochhead
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