Intimate Voices: Selected Works 1965-1983

Intimate Voices was first published by Galloping Dog Press Newcastle in 1984, and went through two reprints before going out of print in 1995. It was republished that same year by Vintage: out of print again, it was republished once more in 2003 by Etruscan Books of Devon,

Intimate Voices shared the Scottish Book of the Year Award in 1984 and had the honour almost immediately of being banned from Scottish Central Region school libraries.  As Simon Bain reported in The Scotsman : "Asked nis reaction to the praise of the book's literary merit, Councillor Kelly [of Central Regional Council Education Committee] said 'I wonder if they have read it.  There are some harmful words in it, and I'm not talking about 'bloody'."  A council spokesman said earlier the book had been withdrawn because 'much of it was unsuitable', but that English teachers could still use it at their discretion.  Councillor Kelly said the committee would not be happy to see teachers using it at all.  'Some people would say it is the naked truth, but sometimes the naked truth has got to be clothed.'

The book contains the four Glasgow dialect sequences written between 1968 and 1979: Six Glasgow Poems, Bunnit Husslin, Unrelated Incidents, and Ghostie Men; the monologue poem A Priest Came on at Merkland Street; a selection of poems in English 1965-83; the dialect spoof about writing, "Honest"; and two essays from 1973 and 1976, one about culture, the other about the importance of William Carlos Williams, and the nature of hierarchical diction in Britain. 

The last poem in Intimate Voices is called 'Fathers and Sons':

I remember being ashamed of my father
when he whispered the words out loud
reading the newspaper.

"Don't you find
the use of phonetic urban dialect
rather constrictive?"
asks a member of the audience.

The poetry reading is over.
I will go home to my children.