Tweed: an interview with poet Craig Aitchison

This summer sees the launch of Tweed, a new full-length poem in Scots by Borders-based poet Craig Aitchison.

From the “steepin grund” and “moor gress” at the source of the Tweed near Tweedsmuir, through fickle rapids and history’s “constant rub”, the poem winds its own riverine journey across 28 pages, beside empty mills and “precious hauchs” to meet the sea, “giving itself with open arms”, at Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Like the river it celebrates, Tweed is a polyvocal work – the result of multiple conversations and collaborations. Tweed exists in several forms. Book artist Rosemary Everett has created a beautiful limited edition version with help from fellow book artists Felicity Bristow and Susie Wilson. This art-object combines Craig’s writing with a delicate, multi-layered etching made by Georgie Fay in response to his words, while the pages were letterpress printed by Robert Smail’s Printing Works in Innerleithen. There is also a pamphlet version, richly illustrated with prints made at a public workshop, as well as an audio version read by Craig.

Ahead of the book’s summer launch events, we caught up with Craig Aitchison to find out more.

Tweed has been in the works for several years now. How has the idea for the project developed during that time?

Craig: I always had an idea to write about the River Tweed. I was born and raised in the Borders, I’ve lived in Berwick and in Galashiels, and the Tweed has always interested me. A big inspiration was Dart (2022) by Alice Oswald, a poem I’ve long admired from afar. I loved the idea of doing something like that and as I’ve become more familiar with parts of the Tweed, often through dog-walking, it started to seem like a possibility.

The initial idea was quite modest. Fishing the Mairch (2022) was a short poem published in New Writing Scotland 40. It was a way of thinking about the river as a border, but I knew that was only one part of a much bigger story.

So the project really began two years ago. I knew that to do something more ambitious about the river as a whole would take time. Rosemary and I had been having conversations based on our shared interest in water. We applied for and received one of the Wee Grants for Creativity in the Scots Leid from Hands Up for Trad and that allowed us to get into more depth in terms of research.

The more Rosemary and I spoke, the more we thought we could do something more with the material we were developing – both artistically and as a piece of writing. We didn’t want to give a narrow perspective of the river. The Tweed is so varied in its meanings to people. If I just gave my meanings, it’s not enough, so I wanted to spend real time with the project and bring in multiple perspectives.

It was at that point that I was in touch with Connecting Threads. I wanted to bring things together – all these different stories that the river had to tell. Connecting Threads provided financial support, contacts, introductions – these have all been invaluable. Everybody I was in touch with was so helpful.

The project has involved so many fascinating discussions. Every story led to another story. Sometimes I feel like I could have stayed in the research and story-gathering stage forever: meeting people, letting people talk, and listening as they shared their experiences. At Coldstream, for example, I went to meet one of the ghillies, who took me to the pub, where we met another person, then another person overhears our conversation and joins in. I could have stayed there all night. Even though the project has now reached a kind of conclusion, I hope that these conversations continue.

The project feels very collaborative in many different ways. From all the people who have shared their stories with you to the artists you’ve worked with – Rosemary Everett, Georgie Fay, Felicity Bristow, Susie Wilson, Isobel Lewis and James Wyness – plus organisations like Robert Smail’s and the printmakers at the workshop. Have you enjoyed this way of working?

As a writer, this approach has been new for me. But it felt like I was bringing in my experience of teaching for many years. As a teacher, I always felt that learning shouldn’t just be in the classroom led by one teacher, as if the classroom is a sealed box. Part of the research stage for Tweed involved reaching out to people who knew more about certain subjects than me, and that’s always been something I’m happy to do as a teacher. Through this project, I’ve started to feel like my writing and my teaching have got closer. They’re both a part of me.

At various points in the process, I became intimidated by the wealth of information that I had gathered. I didn’t know how to do justice to all that material. Some of the people I had spoken with have devoted their lives to the river. There is an energy that comes from these sources: clearly, the Tweed has meant a lot to people’s lives.

I didn’t want to impose my own view too much, but you can’t include everything. So the process became about finding an underlying structure to the poem. It began to develop its own momentum and its own flow. Even though sometimes an hour’s conversation might be distilled into half a line, I like to think that people will see themselves and their stories reflected. During the editing process, I made sure to keep the focus on the river. It is as much about the Tweed as I could make it.

To see it become beautiful and to become something else and to leave it in the hands of other people, it’s a process of letting go after months of work.

"This river, this quiet power, this steady, enduring, onward flow.
It will not be owned or identified, not held by word or by writ."

- Craig Aitchison, Tweed, 2025

This leads into the next question. Is there a particular readership or audience who you hope the work will resonate with?

If the work is for anyone, it is for people in the Borders. I had to leave the Borders and come back in order to really appreciate this region – as a person, as a father and as a writer. This area has so many stories and such a rich history. It is about seeing the value and importance in these stories, the river and the life around it.

So yes, maybe Tweed is primarily for people here. But I fully expect the most common response to focus on what is omitted, who I didn’t speak to or what story I didn’t tell. There is so much more to say. If art and literature have a role, surely it is to make people want to tell their own stories?

Could you say more about your decision to write in Scots?

To write in Scots has always been important to me. I write a lot in Scots and have connections with other Scots writers across the country. It’s interesting because other regions, such as Dumfries and Galloway, have more of a movement of Scots writers. The Borders lacks that. I don’t think there is a Borders Scots movement in the same way yet, but hopefully that can begin to change.

For Tweed, every Scots word has been double checked. A lot of the vocabulary has been used by James Hogg, the Ettrick poet, and others. Some Scots that I’ve included in the poem is no longer in everyday use, so the poem also provides a repository of linguistic heritage.

Has working on the poem reshaped your relationship to the Tweed?

It's taken me back to places I’ve walked for years that I’m very familiar with and it’s made me reflect. For example, I have a very strong memory from the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, during that extraordinarily hot summer when we couldn’t go far. I remember walking with my sons and wife and dog to the river, and then just seeing them playing in the river, just hearing them having fun. In such moments, the Tweed felt like a place to be free and escape. We didn’t have to go to the Canary Islands; we could just go to Boleside.

The project also helped me discover parts of the Tweed which I didn’t know, for example between Peebles and Lyne station. I walked a lot: it was almost always me and the dogs, walking and thinking and criss-crossing the border, at a time when borders are so contentious. It’s an area where battles were fought over borders. So it has been a mixture of discovering places anew and revisiting places with significance in my life in order to learn more. To have that time to focus has been a real privilege.

Our programming theme for 2025 is Watery Commons. How do you feel the project speaks to the politics of the river as a shared resource?

Throughout the research process, I was interested to gather apparently contradictory viewpoints, for example by speaking to both ghillies and environmentalists, to both kayakers and fishers. I had anticipated tensions but actually I found a sharing of knowledge and respect. People had a clear idea of navigating the river in response to others – whether that’s human users or the animals and birds that also share the river with us. It challenged my own preconceived ideas on different uses of the river. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), for example, really value the ghillies because if something is wrong with the river then the ghillies will know before anyone else. There is a shared desire for the river to be healthy, to be used and to be enjoyed. I expected more people saying “this is how it should be” but there was far more openness to seeing the river as a shared space.

That was the research phase. In terms of the book itself, we’re also making sure that copies are distributed to the communities that contributed their stories. It means that the project goes back into the community, with books to be held by libraries, schools and museums. They’re there to be used as a shared resource, in accessible homes but not owned by anyone. There is an audio version, recorded by artist James Wyness, online too. It feels like we’re giving back our view of what the river means and hopefully it will spark future conversations. Right from the beginning, this sense of reciprocity was a key idea – to show that people’s time and stories are appreciated.

Tweed exists in two separate editions: a printed pamphlet and an artists book (limited to 50 copies). The audio version is available online.

To celebrate the launch of Tweed, Craig Aitchison, Rosemary Everett and Georgie Fay are taking part in a panel discussion at Borders Book Festival on Friday 13th June, 8.30pm. The discussion is chaired by Genevieve Fay.

On Sunday 15th June, Craig is holding a poetry workshop at 4.30pm and Georgie is leading a printmaking workshop at 5pm.

The artists’ book is also on display as part of To the Waters and the Wild, a group exhibition organised by South East Scotland Printmakers and Book Artists, taking place at Priorwood Gardens, Melrose, 12th – 15th June, Thu-Sun, 10am-4pm.