Whit If?

About the Book: 

Hugh McMillan’s first collection in Scots, Whit if? poses the questions that you never thought to ask about Scottish history like ‘Whit if Alexander haed Twitter?’, ‘Whit if John Knox haed fawen in luve wi Mary Queen o Scots?’ and ‘Whit if Jacques Brel haed jynt the Corries?’

As both poet and long-time student of Scotland’s strange and undervalued history, McMillan is the ideal guide to all the micht-hiv-bins of Scottish history, as well as all that wis. Humour is guaranteed, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be digging up many an educational gem along the way!

Reviews: 

There is more than an air of fun in the concept but to file this book under ‘whimsy’ or ‘nonsense’ would be to completely miss the careful craft and considered structure that is so emblematic of Hugh’s poetry and which makes Whit If worth of your attention and yer bawbees. NORTHWORDS NOW

To hear Hugh McMillan read his poems is to be in the presence of a comedian of genius, as he delivers line after line of punching humour in a slightly surprised, smiling voice, so that we laugh and laugh but are left well aware that life isn’t funny. TESSA RANSFORD, Author of Not Just Moonshine

Hugh McMillan’s poetry... works like resonant and intricately packed short stories. LESLEY GLAISTER, Author of Blasted Things

About the Author:

HUGH MCMILLAN is a poet from Penpont in Dumfries and Galloway. He has written five full collections of poetry and has read in events and poetry festivals worldwide. His pamphlet Postcards from the Hedge was a winner of the Callum Macdonald Prize in 2009, a prize he won again for Sheepenned in 2017; as part of that prize, he became Michael Marks Poet in Residence for the Harvard Summer School in Napflio, Greece. He was also a winner of the Smith Doorstep Poetry Prize and the Cardiff International Poetry Competition. Devorgilla’s Bridge was shortlisted for the Micael Marks Award and in 2015 was shortlisted for the Basil Bunting Poetry Award. In 2014 Hugh was awarded the first literature commission by the Wigtown Book Festival to create a work inspired by John Mactaggart’s The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopaedia (1824); McMillan’s Galloway was published in limited edition in 2015 and in a revised edition from Luath in 2016. He has featured in many anthologies, and three times in the Scottish Poetry Library’s online selection Best Scottish Poems of the year. His poems have also been chosen three times to feature on National Poetry Day postcards, the latest in 2016. In 2020 he was chosen by the Scottish Poetry Library as one of four ‘Poetry Champions’ for Scotland, to seek out and commission new work, and was given the role as editor of Best Scottish Poems 2021.