BUCHAN, Tom

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Nationality: Scottish. Born: Thomas Buchanan Buchan, Glasgow, 19 June 1931. Education: Jordanhill College School; Balfron High School; Aberdeen Grammar School; University of Glasgow, 1947–53;M.A. (honors) in English 1953. Family: Married Emma Chapman in 1962; two sons and one daughter. Career: Teacher, Denny High School, Stirlingshire, 1953–56; lecturer in English, University of Madras, India, 1957–58; warden, Community House, Glasgow, 1958–59; teacher, Irvine Royal Academy, 1963–65; senior lecturer in English and drama, Clydebank Technical College, Glasgow, 1967–70. Co-director, Kalachaitanya Madras, a touring repertory company, in the 1950s and director of the Craigmillar and Dumbarton festivals in the 1970s; editor, Scottish International, Edinburgh, 1973–74; member of the Rajneesh Ashram, Poona, in the 1970s. Also printer, Poni Press, Offshore Theatre Company, and Arts Projects, all Edinburgh. Awards: Scottish Arts Council award, 1969, 1970. Agent: Barbara Hargeaves, Mains of Faillie, Daviot, Invernesshire. Address: Scoraig, Dundonnell, Wester Ross IV 23 2RE, Scotland.

Publications

Poetry

Ikons. Madras, Tambaram Press, 1958.

Dolphins at Cochin. London, Barrie and Rockliff-Cresset Press, and New York, Hill and Wang, 1969.

Exorcism. Glasgow, Midnight Press, 1972.

Poems 1969–1972. Edinburgh, Poni Press, 1972.

Forwards. Glasgow, Glasgow Print Studio Press, 1978.

Plays

Tell Charlie Thanks for the Truss (produced Edinburgh, 1972).

The Great Northern Welly Boot Show, lyrics by Billy Connolly, music by Tom McGrath (produced Edinburgh and London, 1972).

Knox and Mary (produced Edinburgh, 1972).

Over the Top (produced Edinburgh, 1979).

Bunker (produced Findhorn, Moray, 1980).

Novel

Makes You Feel Great. Edinburgh, Poni Press, 1971.

Other

Editor, with Nora Smith and John Forsyth, Genie: Short Stories. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1974.

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Manuscript Collection: Mitchell Library, Glasgow.

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Tom Buchan's poetry shows a distinctive and consistent development from his collection Dolphins at Cochin to his Poems 1969–1972. His distinction, in the first instance, is in his making a true aesthetic response to the machine imagery of the twentieth century. He in no way indulges this response, but it provides the cutting edge to his satire. This is his depiction of "The White Hunter" in Dolphin at Cochin:

   The white hunter in his newly laundered outfit
   emerges from the acacias hung about with guns,
   compasses, bandoliers, belts, charms, binoculars,
   Polaroid sun-specs, cameras and a shockproof watch.

The more vividly the equipment displays itself, the greater the doubt cast on the reality of the person encased in it. Buchan's effects are immediate, and their impact is decisive. "The Everlasting Astronauts" begins with

   These dead astronauts cannot decay—
   they bounce on the quilted walls of their tin grave
   and very gently collide with polythene balloons
   full of used mouthwash, excrements and foodscraps.

The hallucinatory effect of the floating bodies is captured, but the emphasis is on doubt as to the values of the achievement of modern man.

The nausea suggested in the last line of the quatrain becomes in Buchan's second collection a more important factor, for this is a book that exhibits passionate indignation, disgust, and contempt at the hypocrisy and callousness of officials in power in modern society. His achievement is in the creation of a nightmare world inhabited by politicians who seem to be caricatures of actual persons. The creations induce belief, and they are seen as we know them projected on the screens of the cinema and television. He presents "Mister Nixon President" in this way:

   announces the U.S. invasion of Cambodia
   (Cambodia) on TV and sincerely his sincere right eye
   fixes the poor old silent US majority
   with Operation Total Myopic Solemnity.

The observation is cruel and comic and with some truth in it. Buchan's "subversive" intention does not limit him to satirizing capitalist politicians, however. In the same poem he hits off Brezhnev:

   meanwhile dateline moss-cow Comrade Leonid
   Nebuchadnezzar Brezhnev in a weird soft hat
   reviews the latest lumpen May Day
   parade with a stiff diminutive wave
   reminiscent of our own dear Queen …

The poet undermines the reader's sense of the truth of the observation by injecting into his text such references as CUT and CAM 2, reminding us that for him these are shadows on a screen.

Buchan uses the idea of our seeing the object through a camera lens to a more subtle and profound purpose in his fine poem "The Flaming Man," in which we seem to witness in slow motion the death of a man by burning napalm. Indignation in the poem gives way to compassion, and the result is Buchan at his best. Although he occasionally resorts to political campaigning and to an indulgence in nausea, characteristics that manifest themselves in a strident rhetoric, for the greater part Buchan's rhetoric gives a sinewy strength to his verse.

In Forwards Buchan's attention moves beyond politics to the future of man, about which he is optimistic despite the politicians, the institutionalized greed, the corruption of our times, the impotence of those most able to make alterations. He has the conviction that we are on the verge of great changes that will result in a more enlightened consciousness. This is the raw material of Buchan's rhetoric. It calls for a platform delivery, but much of it lacks the image that will carry meaning. When he presents it, it is immediately effective, as in "Sea Crossing":

   I am frightened of that water …
   …
   And it hides seals, the otter with his stone,
   shark, whales, and the killer whale drifting alongside
   for a moment to inspect the boat
   with his domino mouth pegged out with teeth,
   his playful, mysterious and telepathetic brain-

He comments on "Sea Crossing" that "the image of crossing water for the death-transformation is well known." Where the actual and the symbolic meet, Buchan achieves poetry.

—George Bruce