Author who grew up in Lanarkshire pays tribute to Burns with poetic tribute

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A Wishaw-born author has paid homage to Scotland’s Bard by writing a poem of his own especially for Burns’ Day.Roy Graham, a university professor and former high school English teacher, who moved to Canada more than 50 years ago has paid tribute to Robert Burns with his work - “Spring for Rabbie”.The 76-year-old author who grew up on Alexander Avenue in Wishaw has been captivated by the writings of the Bard for many years.Head over to our new Lanarkshire Live Facebook page to make sure you're up to date with the top stories in the regionRoy knows that not everyone shares his love of poetry, or of Burns in particular, and admits there was a time when he didn’t have that much love for it himself.He told Lanarkshire Live: “In high school I didn’t always appreciate Burns, or most poets for that matter. "It was only when I became a teacher myself, that I realized what a challenge it truly is to create enthusiasm in others for something that I wasn’t really enthusiastic about myself.“As a former high school English teacher, I had ample proof over the years that pupils’ aversion to poetry is due to the fact that it’s advertised as ‘hard’, and that it never says what it means.“There’s also an old saying, ‘Never trust the poet, trust the poem.’“This is a warning to the effect that no matter what poets say about their work, take it with a pinch of salt, because a reader may relate to it in a quite different way, a way the poet perhaps never imagined.”Roy hopes he meaning an intention of his own poem, which he claims is “nothing hard” and instead a “poetic snack”, is more obvious to its readers.

It is, he says, intended as a tribute to Burns as a farmer, lover of women, and of nature.He added: “Burns is still worth paying attention