20thcentury

59d

Hamish Henderson, An Artist’s Inspiration + lecture + Q&A
13 September, Filmhouse Edinburgh

This screening will be followed by a lecture from Dr Fred Freeman (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) and a Q&A

https://www.filmhouse.org.uk/movie/hamish-henderson-an-artists-inspiration-lecture-qa/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #HamishHenderson #Edinburgh #film

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59d

Robin Jenkins (1912–2005) – “the best-kept secret in modern British literature” & one of Scotland’s most prolific 20th-century novelists – was born #OTD, 11 Sep. Dr Linden Bicket argues that Jenkins anticipates the urban realist fictions of Galloway, Kelman & Welsh

A 🎂🧵

1/5

https://asls.org.uk/robin-jenkins-a-centenary-celebration/

#Scottish #literature #novel #20thcentury #RobinJenkins

Robin Jenkins, 1912–2005. Writer. By Jennifer McRae. Oil on canvas, Scottish National Portrait Gallery

Robin Jenkins faces the viewer. A window behind him seems to overlook a blue sea. He is wearing a dark jacket and light-coloured trousers, and he has white hair and spectacles. His hands are interlaced on his lap.

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42d

Leave, leave your well-loved nest,
Late swallow, and fly away.
Here is no rest
For hollowing heart and wearying wing.
Your comrades all have flown
To seek their southern paradise
Across the great earth’s downward sloping side,
And you are alone…

—Edwin Muir, “The Late Swallow”
first published in One Foot in Eden (Faber, 1956)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/late-swallow/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

The Late Swallow
by Edwin Muir

Leave, leave your well-loved nest,
Late swallow, and fly away.
Here is no rest
For hollowing heart and wearying wing.
Your comrades all have flown
To seek their southern paradise
Across the great earth’s downward sloping side,
And you are alone.
Why should you cling
Still to the swiftly ageing narrowing day?
Prepare;
Shake your pinions long untried
That now must bear you there where you would be
Through all the heavens of ice;
Till falling down the homing air
You light and perch upon the radiant tree.

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293d

I saw the dead upon St Laurence Wake
Sailing in beautiful Brimvald. They were young,
Younger than death and life, with a sweet tongue
I have heard in my blood before…

—“The Vikings”, by Olive Fraser (1909–1977) – born #OTD, 20 Jan, & a poet whose work was sadly neglected in her lifetime. A 🎂 🧵

1/6

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #womenwriters #OliveFraser #Vikings

Olive Fraser
1909-77

THE VIKINGS

King Haro's navy met on St Laurence Wake in 1263 at Ronaldsvo under the leadership of his great ship Brimvald

I saw the dead upon St Laurence Wake
Sailing in beautiful Brimvald. They were young,
Younger than death and life, with a sweet tongue
I have heard in my blood before,
Dreaming it was the wild gannets that make
Their comment upon Sulna-stapa shore.
I creid upon the dead, 'Why is your face
So beautiful in the regretless place?

'Surely among the dead there is no will
For dragon-necks of gold and for straight sails,
And Brimvald with the silver bitterns' tails
Is quiet under dark skerries now.'
'O we are loved among the living still,
We are forgiven among the dead. We plough
In the old narrows of the spirit. We
Have woven our wealth into your mystery.'

And I remembered words that I had heard
And never heard. And vessels that I knew
And thought were visions. The mute swans that flew
Over grey islands were like these
And yet were nothing. Once at Herlesferd
I saw a ship whose path on the green seas
Made joy to brindled sea-birds, and my breath
Was dangerous and scant, bitter like death.

'O if you died upon St Laurence Wake
Why are you beautiful and young,' I cried
'Like dreams of you I saw on a great tide
Lovelier and more young than I?
Even when I heard the wild white eagles take
Over the earth with their cruel minstrelsy
You were more light than I have ever been.'
They said, 'We are your Soul that you have seen.'

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58d

A huddle on the greasy street –
cars stop, nose past, withdraw –
dull glint on soles of tackety boots,
frayed rough blue trousers, nondescript coat
stretching back, head supported
in strangers’ arms…

—Edwin Morgan, “Death in Duke Street”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109967/centenary-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #EdwinMorgn #Glasgow

Death in Duke Street
by Edwin Morgan

A huddle on the greasy street –
cars stop, nose past, withdraw –
dull glint on soles of tackety boots,
frayed rough blue trousers, nondescript coat
stretching back, head supported
in strangers’ arms, a crowd collecting –
‘Whit’s wrang?’ ‘Can ye see’m?’
‘An auld fella, he’s had it.’
On one side, a young mother in a headscarf
is kneeling to comfort him, her three-year-old son
stands puzzled, touching her coat, her shopping-bag
spills its packages that people look at
as they look at everything. On the other side
a youth, nervous, awkwardly now
at the centre of attention as he shifts his arm
on the old man’s shoulders, wondering
what to say to him, glancing up at the crowd.
These were next to him when he fell,
and must support him into death.
He seems not to be in pain,
he is speaking slowly and quietly
but he does not look at any of them,
his eyes are fixed on the sky,
already he is moving out
beyond everything belonging.
As if he still belonged
they hold him very tight.

Only the hungry ambulance
howls for him through the staring squares.

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169d

Sit down & strap in: it’s going to be a long, wild Scottish literature 🧵…

What 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotsman was caught up in a South American civil war before he was 20? Wrote a book that inspired an Oscar-winning film? Met a runaway teenager in Paris & married her against the wishes of his family? Lost his ranch to raiding Apaches?

1/18

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #20thcentury #Victorian #Edwardian

A still from THE MISSION (1986). Robert De Niro, with a black beard and swept-back dark hair, stands in a haze of smoke in a jungle scene. He is dressed in a black shirt, and is holding a rapier out in front of him in his right hand. His left is on his hip, in a fencer's fighting stance. He looks unsmilingly along the length of his sword to whatever faces him.

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58d

How we could ever have come to this pass?
Is all we are asking…

“Question & Answer”, by James Findlay Hendry (1912–1986) – born #OTD, 12 September

With G.S. Fraser & Henry Treece, author, poet & translator J.F. Hendry was a contributor to the “New Apocalypse” poetic movement of the 1930s

1/2

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #warpoem #warpoetry #WW2

J. F. Hendry
Question and Answer

How we could ever have come to this pass?
Is all we are asking. Each of our
Bursts of anti-aircraft fire
Hangs a torn wound of questions in the air.

How we could ever, like cattle at grass,
Drift with shadowless clouds, unaware,
Into this era of lightnings and war?
There is no shelter, now or ever, from that answer.

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291d

Gin I was God, sittin’ up there abeen,
Weariet nae doot noo a’ my darg was deen,
Deaved wi’ the harps an’ hymns oonendin’ ringin’,
Tired o’ the flockin’ angels hairse wi’ singin’,
To some clood-edge I’d daunder furth an’, feth,
Look ower an’ watch hoo things were gyaun aneth…

—Charles Murray (1864–1941), “Gin I Was God”
published in THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF SCOTTISH VERSE, @canongatebooks 2021

https://canongate.co.uk/books/3267-the-golden-treasury-of-scottish-verse/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #Scots #Scotslanguage #god

Gin I Was God
Charles Murray

Gin I was God, sittin’ up there abeen,
Weariet nae doot noo a’ my darg was deen,
Deaved wi’ the harps an’ hymns oonendin’ ringin’,
Tired o’ the flockin’ angels hairse wi’ singin’,
To some clood-edge I’d daunder furth an’, feth,
Look ower an’ watch hoo things were gyaun aneth.
Syne, gin I saw hoo men I’d made mysel’
Had startit in to pooshan, sheet an’ fell,
To reive an’ rape, an’ fairly mak’ a hell
O’ my braw birlin’ Earth, – a hale week’s wark –
I’d cast my coat again, rowe up my sark,
An’, or they’d time to lench a second ark,
Tak’ bak my word an’ sen’ anither spate,
Droon oot the hale hypothec, dicht the sklate,
Own my mistak’, an’, aince I’d cleared the brod,
Start a’thing ower again, gin I was God.

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287d

George Douglas Brown (1869–1902) was born #OTD, 26 January – best known for his 1901 novel THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS:

“…the TRAINSPOTTING of its day… an angry young man’s response to the misrepresentation of contemporary Scottish life”

A 🎂 🧵

1/7

https://list.co.uk/news/39535/george-douglas-brown-the-house-with-the-green-shutters-1901

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #modernism #postmodernism

Book cover

THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS

Cover image: A small window in a pale cream-coloured wall, with green shutters. One is half open, but we can only see darkness inside. In the foreground, a red-headed postman in a blue uniform, his eyes and mouth wide open in shock and horror, whirls away from the window, his body twisting as he turns and flees from what he has seen within.

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204d

Marion Cleland Lochhead (1902–1985) was born #OTD, 19 April, in Wishaw. A founding member of Scottish PEN, Lochhead was a versatile figure of the 20th-century Scottish literary scene.

👇“Painted Things”, by Marion Lochhead – published in Painted Things & Other Poems (Gowans & Grey, 1929)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #womenwriters #20thcentury

Painted Things
Marion Lochhead

I love painted things –
Bright wooden toys and boxes, coloured beads,
Shawls like a peacock's plumage, scarves like wings
Of birds that flaunt and flutter: all that breeds
Delight and thoughts fantastic. I love glass,
Deep-tinted, amethystine, fire-red, gold,
That throws dim, changing luminance as I pass,
And shifts, deploys like tapestries unrolled –
I love all these
Gay fantasies; but more I love the grey
Austere walls of cathedrals, the bare trees
That stand unmoved, with light and wing away.

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287d

Ali Smith: The book that changed me as a teenager

“Liz Lochhead’s Memo for Spring… I found a book so slim it had no spine, just hinges, and was by a woman who was young, Scottish and a poet (at this point in time a rare combination). The poems in it were so good, gripping and clear, written in a kind of Scottish English I knew was close to my own, but I’d never read in any book”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jan/23/ali-smith-henry-james-had-me-running-down-the-garden-path-shouting-out-loud

#Scottish #literature #poetry #20thcentury #womenwriters #LizLochhead #AliSmith

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282d

2026 is Agnes Owens’ centenary year, & Polygon will publish 7 new editions of her novels & short stories in collaboration with the Agnes Owens Archive – also launching this year. These new editions will be introduced by some of Scotland’s finest contemporary writers.

https://birlinn.co.uk/2026/01/08/polygon-to-publish-new-editions-of-the-works-of-agnes-owens-to-mark-centenary/

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #20thcentury #workingclass #workingclasswriters #AgnesOwens

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287d

📚 The Friend of the Family by: Dean Koontz

The human "oddities" in the Museum of the Strange are less wondrous than the gawking rubes had been promised. But Alida is something else. The real thing. Traveling Depression-era America from carnival midways to speakeasies, Alida is resigned to an exploited and lonely l...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-friend-of-the-family

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #historical #20thcentury #thrillers #suspensefiction

The human "oddities" in the Museum of the Strange are less wondrous than the gawking rubes had been promised. But Alida is something else. The real thing. Traveling Depression-era America from carnival midways to speakeasies, Alida is resigned to an exploited and lonely life on the road as the museum's golden ticket. Until she's rescued by two compassionate strangers.

Franklin and Loretta Fairchild see in Alida a gifted and uncannily well-read girl in need of a loving touch and a family. With the openhearted couple and their three precociously imaginative children, Alida finds it. Yet despite everyone's overwhelming generosity and acceptance, Alida knows she is still a very different kind of girl. Her dreams bear that out. They're vivid, unsettling, and threatening. Alida fears that they're also warnings. And that it's the Fairchilds who may need rescue from a bad, bad world.

Alida will do anything to help those she now holds nearest and dearest. Empowered with a purpose to vanquish evil, she will not fail her family.

A girl liberated from a carnival sideshow discovers her mysterious purpose in a moving novel about family, sacrifice, and transcendent love by #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz.

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94d

The Cheviot, the Stag & the Black, Black Oil

Currently on the BBC iPlayer: the 1974 TV adaptation of John McGrath’s iconic 7:84 play about the exploitation of the Scottish people through history, from the aftermath of Culloden to the North Sea oil boom

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0193404/play-for-today-series-4-the-cheviot-the-stag-and-the-black-black-oil

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #drama #theatre

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281d

THAT PROMETHEAN SPARK
The Bottle Imp – Muriel Spark special issue

Muriel Spark was born #OTD, 1 Feb, 1918

“With a writing career that included biography, criticism, drama and short fiction as well as novels, Muriel Spark was never one to do things by halves…”

A 🎂 🧵

1/18

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2017/11/that-promethian-spark/

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters

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280d

Today, 2 February, is Candlemas. As well as being a Christian holy day, it is one of the four Scottish Quarter Days, when rents were due.

The Scots poem “At Candlemas” by Marion Angus (1865–1946) is a typically unsentimental look at how swiftly youth turns to old age:

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Candlemas #Scots #Scotslanguage #womenwriters #20thcentury #aging

At Candlemas
Marion Angus

Lang syne at Candlemas
At first cam o’ the mune,
I, a bit lassie,
Hame-gaun fae the toon,
Fell in wi’ a stranger
Frail as ony reed,
Wi’ a green mantle
Hapt aboot her heid.

Haste, I wad haste me,
The whinny road along,
Whinny, crookit road
Faur the grey ghaists gang.
Wi her een fu’ o’ spells,
Her broo runkled sair,
She micht weel be the witch
O’ the Braid Hill o’ Fare.

Here cams Candlemas,
A wan deein’ mune,
Eh! bit I’m weary.
Cauldrife wis the toon!

Yon’s a blythe bairnie
Soople as a reed,
Rinnin’ wi’ a hankey
Tied aboot her heid,
Hastin’, hastin’,
Limber-licht fit,
Doon the crookit road
Faur the grey moths flit.

Quo’ she, ‘Ye’r sma’-bookit,
Yer broo’s runkled sair,
Er’ ye the auld witch
O’ the Braid Hill o’ Fare?’

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21d

The Idea of Influence: Neil Gunn Discussion Panel
14 November, Waterstones, Inverness. Free.

Highland-based authors Kirsty Gunn & Shona Maclean will be in conversation with leading Scottish literature expert Dr Paul Shanks, celebrating the legacy of Neil Gunn & discussing how he has inspired their own writing.

https://www.waterstones.com/events/the-idea-of-influence-neil-gunn-discussion-panel/inverness

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #NeilGunn #Highlands #Inverness

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279d

📚 Land of Dreams by: Gian Sardar

It's 1933, and though the country is stuck in the Great Depression, movies are the ultimate escape. But Hollywood is skilled at selling lies, and nothing is as it seems.

Frankie Donnelly is scrappy, smart, and ambitious. Her knack for spinning any story into stellar publicity has made...

https://bookblabla.com/book/land-of-dreams

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #historical #20thcentury #generalfiction #mysterydetective

$It's 1933, and though the country is stuck in the Great Depression, movies are the ultimate escape. But Hollywood is skilled at selling lies, and nothing is as it seems. Frankie Donnelly is scrappy, smart, and ambitious. Her knack for spinning any story into stellar publicity has made her an invaluable "fixer" at RCO Studios, where she works under the tutelage of powerful Nico Marconi. Frankie's latest fix is the upcoming marriage of Hollywood royals Jack Sawyer and June Finney, and millions of fans can't wait to see their favorite silver-screen lovers tie the knot. But Frankie knows the truth: The marriage is an artful cover for Jack and June's darkest secrets. When a shocking murder occurs, allegiances fracture, the tabloids go wild, and a devastated public is left reeling. Frankie uncovers new layers of scandal and deception and is forced to choose which Hollywood player to protect and who to destroy. Now, more than ever, the country needs a happy ending--but at what cost? In the 1930s, scandal, secret loves, and murder shatter a woman's Hollywood dream in a gripping novel by the USA Today bestselling author of When the World Goes Quiet.$

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285d

An raoir, mar a gheall an sanas,
bha na fèidh air an rathad,
sùilean lainnireach an solus a chàr…

—Uilleam Nèill, “Feidh”
Published in Making tracks: and other poems (Gordon Wright, 1988)

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #deer #20thcentury

Feidh
Uilleam Nèill

An raoir, mar a gheall an sanas,
bha na fèidh air an rathad,
sùilean lainnireach an solus a chàr.
Cha b’iad na fèidh ruadha nam beann àrda
ach an fheadhainn beag a th’ againn sa choilltean Ghallobha.
Thanaig sreath bàrdachd Dhonnchaidh ’nam inntinn:
“Chunnaic mi ’n damh donn sna h-eildean . . .”

Cha tigeadh dhomhsa ach facail bheaga ’na choimeas
mu na feidh bheaga seo:
“Ma ’s beag iad, tha iad grinn is neo-challaichte,
agus, gus an tig an saoghal gu crioch,
dileas d’an ghnè-san.”

Deer
William Neill

Last night, as the sign promised,
the deer were on the road,
shining eyes in the car’s light.
These were not the red deer of the high mountains,
but the little ones we have in the woods of Galloway.
A line of Duncan’s poetry came into my mind:
“I saw the brown stag and his hinds . . .”

Nothing would come to me but little words compared with his,
about these little deer:
“If they are small, they are graceful and untamed
and, till their world comes to an end,
faithful to their kind.”

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277d

Four crabs from the cold firth
alive for a shilling. The largest
reared in the pot, in spite of
the fierce water, but soon
we cracked his limbs with our teeth
and wheedled with spoons and fingers
for the last shreds of flesh
from the crannies of his briny body…

—Angus Calder, “Crab”
from WAKING IN WAIKATO (diehard, 1997)

Angus Calder (1942–2008) – journalist, historian, editor, critic, & poet – was born #OTD, 5 Feb

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/crab/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Crab
by Angus Calder

Four crabs from the cold firth
alive for a shilling. The largest
reared in the pot, in spite of
the fierce water, but soon
we cracked his limbs with our teeth
and wheedled with spoons and fingers
for the last shreds of flesh
from the crannies of his briny body.

In that brittle maze
I found no features to remind me
of our brains, our livers
or our smooth bellies, yet doubtless
their functions were held by some part
of the paste of his cavities.

Spread, soup and risotto –
only the gills were rejected.

In the days we ate him
I did not forget
his moment on the floor
to amuse the baby, when she
gloated at the slow clash
of his last menace,
nor that shape which made me think
of a soft soldier
fried in the cockpit of a tank.

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175d

Pale yellow letters
humbly straggling across
the once brilliant red
of a broken shop-face
CONFECTIO…

—Edwin Morgan, “To Joan Eardley”
Joan Eardley (1921–1963) was born #OTD, 18 May

🖼️ Joan Eardley, “Sweet Shop, Rotten Row, 1960–1961”, Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow

https://www.gla.ac.uk/collections/#/details?irn=59156&catType=C

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #art #visualart #painting #20thcentury #JoanEardley

"To Joan Eardley"
by Edwin Morgan

Pale yellow letters
humbly straggling across
the once brilliant red
of a broken shop-face
CONFECTIO
and a blur of children
at their games, passing,
gazing as they pass
at the blur of sweets
in the dingy, cosy
Rottenrow window –
an Eardley on my wall.
Such rags and streaks
that master us! –
that fix what the pick
and bulldozer have crumbled
to a dingier dust,
the living blur
fiercely guarding
energy that has vanished,
cries filling still
the unechoing close!
I wandered by the rubble
and the houses left standing
kept a chill, dying life
in their islands of stone.
No window opened
as the coal cart rolled
and the coalman’s call
fell coldly to the ground.
But the shrill children
jump on my wall.

“Sweet Shop, Rotten Row”. A painting by Joan Eardley. Oil paint is applied thickly, in blotches of colour. A mustard-yellow sign bearing the letters CONFECTIO sits above a blurred shop front, showing a green window on the left and a red door on the right. Three almost abstract figures of children – two girls and a boy, probably – are dashing past the shop from left to right in a swirl of pinks, browns, and blues. The leftmost child has long black hair streaming out behind her head, adding to the sense of swift movement.

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277d

Build me a bridge over the stream
to my neighbour’s house
where he is standing in dungarees
in the fresh morning…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Neighbour”
published in NEW COLLECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2011)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781857549607/new-collected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #IainCrichtonSmith

Iain Crichton Smith
Neighbour

Build me a bridge over the stream
to my neighbour’s house
where he is standing in dungarees
in the fresh morning.

O ring of snowdrops
spread wherever you want
and you also blackbird
sing across the fences.

My neighbour, if the rain falls on you,
let it fall on me also
from the same black cloud
that does not recognise gates.

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274d

Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded #OnThisDay, 8 February, 1587, on the orders of Elizabeth I of England – her first cousin once removed.

Consider the way she had to go,
Think of the hungry snare,
The net she herself had woven,
Aware or unaware…

—Marion Angus, “Alas! Poor Queen”
Published in TURN OF THE DAY (1931) – online via the National Library of Scotland

https://digital.nls.uk/works-by-selected-scottish-authors/archive/129159433?mode=fullsize

#Scottish #literature #history #poem #poetry #MaryQueenofScots #womenwriters #20thcentury

Alas! Poor Queen
Marion Angus

She was skilled in music and the dance
And the old arts of love
At the court of the poisoned rose
And the perfumed glove,
And gave her beautiful hand
To the pale Dauphin
A triple crown to win—
And she loved little dogs
And parrots
And red-legged partridges
And the golden fishes of the Due de Guise
And a pigeon with a blue ruff
She had from Monsieur d’Elboeuf.

Master John Knox was no friend to her ;
She spoke him soft and kind,
Her honeyed words were Satan’s lure
The unwary soul to bind.
“Good sir, doth a lissome shape
And a comely face
Offend your God His Grace
Whose Wisdom maketh these
Golden fishes of the Due de Guise?”

She rode through Liddesdale with a song ;
“Ye streams sae wondrous strang,
Oh, mak’ me a wrack as I come back
But spare me as I gang.”
While a hill-bird cried and cried
Like a spirit lost
By the grey storm-wind tost.

Consider the way she had to go,
Think of the hungry snare,
The net she herself had woven,
Aware or unaware,

Of the dancing feet grown still,
The blinded eyes.—
Queens should be cold and wise,
And she loved little things,
Parrots
And red-legged partridges
And the golden fishes of the Due de Guise
And the pigeon with the blue ruff
She had from Monsieur d’Elboeuf.

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273d

The swine hangs on,
The swine hangs on to power,
The townsfolk mutter round the tower…

—Alan Jackson, “The Swine”
published in Salutations: Collected Poems 1960–1989 (Polygon, 1990)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/swine/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

The Swine
Alan Jackson

The swine hangs on,
The swine hangs on to power,
The townsfolk mutter round the tower:

“Roast him, toast him,
Thin his blood.
Try fire first,
Then try flood.

Char the timbers,
Crack the stone.
Make him marrow
In a splintered bone.

Then he’ll tumble,
Our hot meat.
Then we hack him.
Then we eat.”

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272d

📚 Women of a Promiscuous Nature by: Donna Everhart

On a brisk February morning while walking to the diner where she works, 24 year-old Ruth Foster is stopped by the local sheriff. He insists she accompany him to a health clinic, threatening to arrest her if she doesn't undergo testing in order to preserv...

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On a brisk February morning while walking to the diner where she works, 24 year-old Ruth Foster is stopped by the local sheriff. He insists she accompany him to a health clinic, threatening to arrest her if she doesn't undergo testing in order to preserve decency and prevent the spread of sexual disease.

Though Ruth has never shared more than a chaste kiss with a man, by day's end she is one of dozens of women held at the State Industrial Farm Colony for Women. Some are there because they were reported for promiscuity by neighbors, husbands, strangers. Some were accused of prostitution. Others were just pretty and unmarried. Or poor and suspicious. One was eating dinner alone in a restaurant. Another spoke to a soldier.

Josephine's sin was running a business as a single woman. Maude's was trying to drown her sorrows. Frances had lost her mind. Opal married a man with a mean streak. Some, like 15-year-old Stella, are brought in because they're victims of assault. She's too naive and broken to understand how unjust this imprisonment is.

Superintendent Dorothy Baker, convinced that she's transforming degenerate souls into upstanding members of society, oversees the women's medical treatment and “training" until they're deemed ready for parole. Sooner or later, everyone at the Colony learns to abide by Mrs. Baker's rule book or face the consequences—solitary confinement, grueling work assignments, and worse.

But some refuse to be cowed. Some find ways to fight

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