Robert Burns has been the inspiration for Ayrshire poets ever since his poems began to circulate around the county in manuscript, then in the form of John Wilson’s Kilmarnock edition in 1786. Locally-produced pamphlets and collections began to appear in the early 1800s, and for many years throughout the 19th century.
By 1877 a new dimension to the Burns-inspiration emerged in Kilmarnock: the Kilmarnock Burns Monument. At a public demonstration on 26th January 1877 at the George Inn Hall, it was unanimously agreed “that a statue be erected in some suitable place in honour of the poet”. From that moment on, a new stream of poems regularly appeared in print, mainly celebrating Burns and his connections to the town. Some of these poems were collected by James McKie for a Burns Monument poetry competition, compiled in a Poet’s Holograph Scrapbook.
An 1878 edition of the Kilmarnock Standard, containing a lengthy article about the laying of the memorial stone of the Monument, states: “The stream of admiration for the genius of Burns has flowed as it never flowed before”. In the same edition, there are no less than three poems about the Monument. The extract below, signed A. M., is a stirring and timely reminder of one of the great achievements in #creativekilmarnock.
