Robert Traill Spence Lowell--my cousin the poet who was not merely of a family of Boston Brahmins--Thinking of DAYSWORK

 

The “novelists” do not mention any connection between Lowell and me but I think of him with melancholy, for we are cousins, both of us Traills. Wikipedia says “Boston Brahmin” twice, but the grandfather we share is William Traill of Westness in the Orkneys, and we descend from more ancient Orkney families, the Spences and Balfours. I think of myself as a Scot, and knowing that the poet and I have those Orkney heritages is empowering. It is good to know, say, that my Glenns are from Renfrewshire, near Glasgow, but is any other place in Scotland as evocative as the Orkneys, where life is punishing and where Viking and even Pictish graves have been excavated? Rather than pondering over Cousin Cal’s tortured life I cherish knowing he made a pilgrimage to the Orkneys to visit to the poet Charles Mackay Brown, who knew more about our Traill and Balfour ancestors than we ever did.