Frédéric Chopin Tweets from the Edinburgh Hogmanay Party

Abstract

July–August 2013 • 25 photo : www . flickr . com / people / fabulousminge A year before he died, Chopin stood outside his Stockbridge flat and reached up into the stars. He hoped their distant gravities might – Next moment (his feet hardly touching the cobbles, Georgian elegance shuddering in his slipstream), he’s been accelerated 150 years and more into the city centre. Sullen lanes are fisted into staccato-hammered scherzos, iron railings finger-click mazurkas. Offices, high-end clubs, boutiques and basement bars go into meltdown – The Edinburgh skyline cascades upwards as rush of chords. Here’s Princes Street 2013. Here’s Day-Glo Security, plastic barricades. (Has there been a revolution, and he’s missed it?) He hits the Gardens molto-precipito – • Give the man a welcome, a mobile and a hash tag – keyboard-friendly fingers like his deserve a touchscreen! The blood I coughed up, soaked into the rolled-out map of history. We tweet our sympathy, re-tweet. The pogroms, the ghettoes, the death camps – We tweet the offer of a wall on Facebook. My country has been torn apart again and again, its people – Almost midnight! Time for a glorious en masse elevation of our phones: We’ll capture the fireworks showering the Castle with coloured light. We’ll put him on YouTube: Celebrity composer Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) tweeting about a Polish-style independence for Scotland. My country disappeared as if it had never – We’ll make the Hogmanay bells ring all year, and Hogmanay kisses last forever. Ron Butlin (www.ronbutlin.co.uk) is Edinburgh’s Poet Laureate. His work has been translated into over ten languages, and he has participated in major literary festivals worldwide. The Sound of My Voice was included in the Guardian’s “1000 Books You Have to Read” and has won two international prizes, both as Best Foreign Novel. His most recent collection of poetry is The Magicians of Edinburgh (Polygon, 2012). He lives in Edinburgh with his wife, the writer Regi Claire. Frédéric Chopin Tweets from the Edinburgh Hogmanay Party Ron Butlin ...