Hugh McMillan: at a time when many struggle to get by, what’s the point of poetry?

Hugh McMillan: at a time when plenty of struggle to secure by, what's the point of poetry?

Key points

• This year's Wigtown Book Festival will be awash with poetry, alongside every other kind of literature.
• The Galloway Bar in Wigtown is a pub the way pubs were meant to be.
• The consensus was "what's the point of poets and poetry in a world going to hell in a handcart?"
• Basho remarked Real poetry is to lead a beautiful life.

Hugh McMillan: at a time when plenty of struggle to secure by, what's the point of poetry? Published 27th Aug 2026, 07: 19 BST. Updated 27th Aug 2026, 07: 20 BST.

This year's Wigtown Book Festival will be awash with poetry, alongside every other kind of literature. To kick off our new weekly series of Wigtown Poetry Essays, Hugh McMillan sets out to answer a question put to him in the pub: 'what's the point of poets and poetry in a world going to hell in a handcart?'

Meanwhile, the Galloway Bar in Wigtown is a pub the way pubs were meant to be. Full of locals, banter, lager, not a charcuterie tray or mai tai in sight. Individuals express their opinions, and they're not always comfortable to hear. When I was researching an article, for instance, regarding the impact on the economy of Wigtown's official designation as Scotland's National Book Town, I asked an auld heid and he stated "Aye, this town used to be a f***ing dump – and now it's a f***ing dump with a book festival."

I once had the misfortune to appear on TV talking regarding being a poet while I was in the pub, prompting such abuse the landlord still gives me a free pint whenever I turn up. The consensus was "what's the point of poets and poetry in a world going to hell in a handcart?"

I've often wondered myself how writing a poem that might appear in a small Canadian magazine can ever support the residents of Gaza, or anywhere else where the simple task of living is a horror. Basho remarked "Real poetry is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it." Not everyone can live up to that. Dylan Thomas remarked "the world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it." I hope that's true. I know myself that expressing a political stance in poetry is a lot more healthy than impotent rage.

It's additionally true that poetry is a way of preserving ways of life and thinking. Galloway, with its rich mixture of Gaelic, Northumbrian, Scots, even Norse, has produced plenty of bardic poets, poets whose work transcends the temporary. I'm thinking of the brilliant William Neill and Josephine Neill, the former who wrote in all three languages of Scotland, the latter whose wonderful Scots captures a rural way of life which is familiar and poignant since it has largely disappeared. I'm thinking of Alexander Anderson the railwayman from Kirkconnell; I'm thinking Roger Quin "the tramp poet" who lived for a while in a cave near Whithorn; I'm thinking of spikey, embattled Hugh MacDiarmid in Langholm. In a country where language, history and heritage is a battleground between folk who want to deny our identity and folk who see them as parts of a past that might ignite a future, poetry plays a vital part still. At Wigtown the book festival has always celebrated the vital strands of our literary DNA, including Gaelic. Mind you, don't obtain the folk in the pub kicked off on that – no employ telling them that the only dead language on a police car bonnet is Latin.

Taken together, the developments around hugh McMillan: at a time when many struggle to get by, what's point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.