This indictment of coal-mining in Scotland in the 1920s is kept in balance by the poet’s irony (and knowledge of the Bible). No wonder its author, Joe Corrie, made a stir – a thousand copies of his collection, with ‘The Image o God’ as its title piece, were sold in half-an-hour on one May Day celebration on Glasgow Green.
Corrie defied stock notions of a radical. William Hershaw writes about this complex man with insight and admiration in Lallans 91, the magazine’s Yuil edition (£9).
THE IMAGE O GOD
Crawling aboot like a snail in the mud,
Covered wi clammy blae,
Me, made after the image o God –
Jings! But it’s laughable tae.
~
Howkin awa ’neath a mountain o stane
Gaspin for want o air,
The sweast makkin streams doon my bare back-banes,
And my knees aa hauckit and sair.
~
Strainin and cursin the hale shift through,
Half-starved, half-blin, half-mad,
And the gaffer he says, “Less dirt in that coal
Or ye go up the pit, my lad.”
~
So I gie my life tae the Nimmo Squad
For eicht and fower a day.
Me! Made after the image o God –
Jings! But it’s laughable tae.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article