Mary Symon was a Scottish poet who penned several of the best-known poems to express the impact of the First World War upon the people of Scotland. Her most memorable poetry told of the enduring heartbreak of those left behind.
Symon was born in 1863 in Dufftown, Moray, where her father, a saddler, had been Provost. He bought the estate of Pittyvaich, to the south of Dufftown, which was where she spent most of her life. Her first poem, written at the age of 11, concerned the completion of the new parish church.
Symon went to school locally, then in Edinburgh, where she was taught by James Logie Robertson (who wrote in Scots under the name ‘Hugh Haliburton’), and then to the University of St Andrews. Symon’s poetry appeared in ‘Aberdeen University Review’, ‘The Scots Magazine’ and other publications and was championed by the famous poet Hugh MacDiarmid, who included her poetry in his Northern Numbers anthologies of the early 1920s.
Symon’s first poetry collection, ‘Deveron Days’, was not published until 1933; it was an immediate success, selling out in less than a week. Much of her poetry displayed humour and sensitivity and she translated several foreign-language poems into Scots.
But it is for her war poetry that she is best remembered. Verses such as ‘Hame’ and ‘The Soldiers’ Cairn’ imbue the bleakly beautiful Scottish landscapes that Symon knew so well with the terrible loss and heartache felt by all those who suffered through the First World War.
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