(Mis)appropriate

I’ve said before that I don't care
About cultural (mis)appropriation;
Do I dare? Yes, I do dare
To appropriate without reservation.

And in return I’ll gladly let you
Wear a tartan toorie on yer heid
Or boil a haggis in an Irish stew;
Whit ye wear an whit ye feed…

…yourselves, guys, I’m cool with that.
Steal what you like; just employ it
And, keep this underneath your hat,
My culture’s yours if you enjoy it.

© BH, 2018

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There was a piece on Poetry24 (Facebook) about a poet who got criticised for using a cultural voice that was not his own (a ‘black voice’ while he is white) to the extent that the publish unpublished what he’d written.

[The sory is here - http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/can-poetry-survive-outrage-culture/21699#.W4B-1zar8Xl]

The charge was cultural appropriation. The comments that followed felt as I do, that this isn’t on and the publisher should never have caved in.

In a later post and in a similar vein, I remarked, I write about war and I’ve never been in one. I’ve written about endangered species and environmental disaster yet I’m neither a white rhino nor a turtle drowning in a web of plastic bits.

Publish and be damned, I said. And I wrote this on the very spur of the moment (though I’ve never worn spurs in my puff). Now, only slightly tidied up here is my permission to any who need it to borrow my Scottishness and dae whit they wull wi’t.