Eggplant.place

43d

Archival Breezes 2, or de-Glasgowifying Agnes Owens

Kirstin Innes on the mis-categorisation of Agnes Owens as a ‘Glasgow writer’.

“[Owens] managed some strange alchemy of hyper-locality and universality which makes her a bard of small town existence, wherever that small town might be. But it isn’t of Glasgow.”

https://substack.com/@kirstininnes/p-216883261

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

Edited 43d ago

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15d

Somhairle MacGill-Eain (Sorley MacLean) – one of the greatest European poets of the 20th century – was born #OTD, 26 Oct

A 🎂🧵

Watch “Sorley MacLean’s Island” via the National Library of Scotland – Sorley MacLean in conversation with fellow writer Iain Crichton Smith

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https://movingimage.nls.uk/film/3141

#Scottish #literature #Hebrides #Skye #Raasay #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #poetry #20thcentury #modernism

A closeup of two hands, playing a set of small pipes. Text overlay: SORLEY MACLEAN'S ISLAND

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16d

He’s no artist.
His taste in clothes is more
dowdy than gaudy…

—Norman MacCaig, “Sparrow”
published in The Many Days: Selected Poems of Norman MacCaig (Polygon, 2010)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/the-many-days/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #NormanMacCaig #birds #sparrows

Sparrow
by Norman MacCaig

He’s no artist.
His taste in clothes is more
dowdy than gaudy.
And his nest – that blackbird, writing
pretty scrolls on the air with the gold nib of his beak,
would call it a slum.

To stalk solitary on lawns,
to sing solitary in midnight trees,
to glide solitary over gray Atlantics –
not for him: he’d rather
a punch-up in a gutter.

He carries what learning he has
lightly – it is, in fact, based only
on the usefulness whose result
is survival. A proletarian bird.
No scholar.
But when winter soft-shoes in
and these other birds –
ballet dancers, musicians, architects –
die in the snow
and freeze to branches,
watch him happily flying
on the O-levels and A-levels
of the air.

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14d

In Gránada, in Gránada,
They dumbed the mou o a makar,
In Gránada, in Gránada,
They strak doun Garcia Lorca…

—“In Gránada, in Gránada”, by Sydney Goodsir Smith (1915–1975) – a major figure in the 20th-century Scottish renaissance, born #OTD, 26 Oct

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https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-kist-o-skinlan-things/

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

Sydney Goodsir Smith
In Gránada, in Gránada
(Llanto por Federico Garcia Lorca)

In Gránada, in Gránada,
They dumbed the mou o a makar,
In Gránada, in Gránada,
They strak doun Garcia Lorca.

Ye bard o the tinks, o gipsy Spain,
Frae Gránada, frae Gránada,
Aa the gangrel folk that scorn chains—
O wae for Garcia Lorca!

At dawin fornent a sunwhite waa
In Gránada, in Gránada,
The rifles reik, O see him faa,
Daith rins at the tyrant’s order.

But they sall pey for that fell deed,
In Gránada, in Gránada,
Franco and his men o bluid,
Their fingers reid wi murder.

Mair nor juist ane enemie
Was kill yon morn in Gránada,
For daith is neer a bundarie
Til the voice o a folk was Lorca.

Ay, he was Spain, anither Burns,
In Gránada, in Gránada,
O wae for thae when the tide turns
That strak doun Garcia Lorca!

And wae for thae in ilka land,
Or Galloway or Gránada,
That thirl the libertie o man
For bards nor daith are stranger.

And aye their leid is Freedom,
In Galloway or Gránada,
Ay, greit for the tinkler’s martyrdom
And the white dumb mou o a makar.

Ay, greit for Lorca, bard o the waifs,
Saw birth and daith in Gránada,
Wae for the sang was stanched yon day
While the sand ran reid wi clangor.

But sing o the victorie was gained,
In Gránada, in Gránada ———!
For aye your bluid sall dirl throu Spain,
Federico Garcia Lorca!

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12d

Jessie Kesson (1916–1994) was born #OTD, 28 Oct. Taken from her mother at 10, she spent 6 years in an orphanage; although she displayed obvious academic talent she was denied any chance of further education & was sent into domestic servitude aged 16.

Despite these & other hardships she became a highly regarded writer whose works explore ordinary women’s lives with clarity & poetic prose

A 🎂🧵

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https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/9964/jessie-kesson-novelist

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #workingclass

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9d

Oidhche Shamhna – a South Uist Halloween

Ethnomusicologist, photographer, folklorist, & scholar Margaret Fay Shaw (1903–2004) recorded a traditional Hebridean Halloween on South Uist in the 1930s, in photographs & on film

—via the National Trust for Scotland

https://www.nts.org.uk/stories/oidhche-shamhna-a-south-uist-halloween

#Scottish #Scotland #culture #Halloween #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #Hebrides #20thcentury #SouthUist #ethnology

A black and white image of two children dressed for Halloween, standing on a flat patch of scrubby ground with a rocky hillside rising behind them. The children are wearing multiple layers of outsized clothes, bundled and knotted around them. Their hands are hidden within their sleeves, and they have huge adult work-boots on their feet. The figure on the left is wearing a crude mask with tiny eyeholes and a mouth hole; tufts of dried grass have been added to create a beard and moustache. The figure on the right doesn't seem to have a mask – just a large clump of heather for a head, protruding from a jacket collar swathed in scarves.

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9d

Naomi Mitchison (née Haldane, 1897–1999) was born #OTD, 1 Nov, & saw almost every day of the #20thcentury. A hugely influential writer, with 80+ books—poetry, politics, historical novels, #ScienceFiction, #Fantasy, #ChildrensLiterature & more—to her credit.

A 🎂🧵

“She liked to challenge, she liked to shock, she liked to deliver the unexpected, she liked to experiment”

—Jenni Calder on Mitchison’s life & work

@litstudies

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https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2016/09/25/naomi-mitchison/

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters

A sepia-tinted monochrome photo of Naomi Mitchison, c. 1925. A young woman looks directly at the camera, leaning forward slightly. Her long dark hair is parted down the middle, and tied behind her head. Her gaze is steady and appraising.

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6d

“Owens meanwhile writes staccato sentences in the vein of Gertrude Stein; simplicity which seems at times nearly aphoristic soon reveals its full effect.”

via @literaryhub – Megan Nolan’s foreword to the US edition of Agnes Owens’ 𝘈 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘔𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳

@bookstodon

https://lithub.com/megan-nolan-on-agnes-owenss-a-working-mother-an-ode-to-working-class-scotland/

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

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40d

Faar’s Baabie Jeanie’s loon? The aal wife hersel
Stans treeshin hame the milkers at the ley park yett.
Faa caas the mornin cairt an fordals neeps an strae,
Wi waages up an risin an fee’d folk sae ull to get?…

—“War: 1939–1945” by Flora Garry (1900–2000)—born #OTD, 30 September
published in FROM THE LINE: Scottish War Poetry 1914–1945

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #20thcentury #warpoetry #WW2 #womenwriters

War: 1939-1945
by Flora Garry

‘Faar’s Baabie Jeanie’s loon? The aal wife hersel
Stans treeshin hame the milkers at the ley park yett.
Faa caas the mornin cairt an fordals neeps an strae,
Wi waages up an risin an fee’d folk sae ull to get?
Baabie Jeanie’s Jockie, faar’s he?

An yon swack hashin chiel in Willum Sinclair’s shop?
He heeld ye oot o langour, sae joco an kin’ly wi’t.
‘Noo, lassie’ to the grunnies: ‘Weel, dearie’ to the quines,
He’s a want ahin the coonter, Willum’s sic a strunge breet.
I miss a news wi yon lad. Faar’s he?

An Droggie’s clivver dother? She could mak her fadder’s peels.
Nae hoven wyme or clocher, nae beelin, hack or strain
Bit she could ease; an fin royt nackets tummelt greetin at their play
She’d rowe up their bleedit sair bits, sen them duncin furth again.
The bairns likit Chrissie. Faar’s she?

An Cyaarnadellie’s foreman? I’ the clear Spring nichts
He trystit wi the banker’s deemie up at the market place.
Noo, she’s skycin roun the gable-eyn, her leen, i the early gloam,
Wi a muckle cwyte aboot her an a graavit ower her face.
Cyaarnadellie’s foreman, faar’s he?’

‘Speir at the waarslin tides, the desert saans, the caal starlicht.
They ken far.’

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39d

Women of the Saltire Society
20 October, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Free, ticketed

Join the Saltire Society for a special event celebrating the women whose contributions have helped shape the Saltire Society & Scotland’s cultural life

The event will also offer a unique opportunity to view archival material especially on display for the day, & to visit the Saltire Society’s 90th anniversary exhibition

https://events.humanitix.com/women-of-the-saltire-society

#Scottish #Scotland #literature #culture #20thcentury

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35d

The merry badger keeps his way
Nocturnally,
And I go merry to my play
Even as he…

—Olive Fraser, “The Solitaries”
from THE WRONG MUSIC, @canongate.co.uk 1989

Happy National Badger Day – 6 October – to all who celebrate!

https://www.badgertrust.org.uk/brocktober

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #naturepoetry #womenwriters #badger #badgers #NationalBadgerDay

The Solitaries
by Olive Fraser

The merry badger keeps his way
Nocturnally,
And I go merry to my play
Even as he.

Minding our own business
Tending our own,
We are no more than this.
Leave us alone.

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34d

Josephine Tey & the problem of time
20 Oct, Melrose. £6

According to Val McDermid, Josephine Tey is the bridge between Golden Age & contemporary crime fiction. Tey’s books were unconventional in their portrayal of sexuality & in their playful challenges to the norms of the genre, & also took unusual approaches to questions of time & space. Prof Timothy Baker investigates.

https://melroseliterarysociety.org.uk/melrose-literary-society/programme-2026-27/josephine-tey-and-the-problem-of-time/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #crimefiction #womenwriters #crimewriting #detectivefiction

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1d

Like an unnourished rose I see you now, and yours the
Pallor of that city of soot and pigeons…

—“A Winter Letter” (To my sister in London, from Asmara), by George Sutherland Fraser (1915–1980) – born #OTD, 8 Nov

Published in From the Line: Scottish War Poetry 1914–1945

https://uk.bookshop.org/a/2111/9781906841164

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

George Sutherland Fraser
A Winter Letter
(To my sister in London, from Asmara)

Like an unnourished rose I see you now, and yours the
Pallor of that city of soot and pigeons
Where the leaf is pale, that seems to curl its tendrils
Always around the painted green of iron,
I imagine you pale among the pigeon droppings,
And with your eyelids shadowed like the violets
They sell in bunches from their pavement baskets,
And I imagine you not with your old buxomness
But slim like the young ladies in the advertisements,
With your hair preened in a mode of cockney smartness
And your hands in the pockets of a heavy coat . . .
Do you think wistfully as I do, my darling,
These mornings when your heart is not in that city,
Reluctant stroller to the Board of Trade,
Of our glittering and resourceful north, with its
Terminus smell in the morning of cured herrings
And its crackling autumn suburbs of burned leaves?
Though I write in winter, and now except for the hollies
The trees in our old garden are all bare:
Now as they walk these streets of flashing mica,

ALT

They puff white steam from their nostrils, men and horses,
And their iron heels strike out sparks from the frosty road!
Now the white mist seeps round the red brick baths by the sea-front
And the children are girning at play with blue fingers
For a sea-coal fire and the starch of a Scotch high-tea,
Now with nipped red cheeks, the girls walk the streets rapidly,
And the shop-window's holly and tinsel can hardly delay.
I think of the swirl of the taffeta schoolgirls at Christmas,
Remembering Bunny whose skin was like cream upon milk,
Remembering Joy with her honey-dark skin and dark glances,
Remembering Rosemary's chatter and eloquent eyes,
Ahimé! and sigh because war with its swoop and its terror
That pounces on Europe and lifts up a life like a leaf,
Though its snell wind whirl you into a niche where you’re cosy
Yet its years eat up youth and the hope of fulfilment of youth.

And last night I dreamt I returned and therefore I write,
Last night my train had drawn up at a black London station,
And there you were waiting to welcome me, strange but the same,
And I shook your gloved hands, kissed your light-powdered cheek, and was waiting
To see your new flat, and your books, and your hats, and your friends,
When I suddenly woke with a lost lonesome head on my pillow,
And black Africa turning beneath me towards her own dawn,
And my heart was so sore that this dream should be snapped at the prologue
That I send you my soreness, dear heart, for the sake of this dream.

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1d

“The understated power of this writing is extraordinary”
—Prof Alan Riach re-examines Neil Gunn’s legacy

Neil M. Gunn (1891–1973), one of the most important & influential writers of the 20th-century Scottish renaissance, was born #OTD, 8 Nov – a 🎂 🧵

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https://www.thenational.scot/news/15637617.neil-gunn-and-the-search-for-scotlands-soul/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #novel #novelist #NeilMGunn

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33d

Hermes was a bad god, a shifty fellow,
a liar, a thief, a teller of the future
(with dice, of course), a musician,
herald and messenger of the gods…

—Norman MacCaig, “Hermes-Mercury”
published in THE POEMS OF NORMAN MACCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/the-poems-of-norman-maccaig/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #NormanMacCaig #Hermes #Mercury #Wednesday #Roman #Classical

Norman MacCaig
Hermes-Mercury

Hermes was a bad god, a shifty fellow,
a liar, a thief, a teller of the future
(with dice, of course), a musician,
herald and messenger of the gods.

No wonder mercury was called after Mercury.
No wonder the Romans gave him that name:
the Trader, the Business Man.

How he must have laughed when the Romans
raised a statue to him
– god of commerce, god of profit and loss –
in the Street called Sober Street
where no shops were allowed, no pubs.

No wonder he was the conveyor of dreams.
Garden of Bliss, Vision of Hell – what did he care?
Yet I admire him. He was a survivor.

What a god, to survive among
those other gods and goddesses, those arrogant,
selfish, high-living turncoats and lechers –
too stupid to notice they were only
the blind dupes of Fate.

. . . Fate must have loved him, the black sheep,
the con man, the wide boy of Olympus.

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33d

Today, October 8, is (naturally) Octopus Day … Hugh MacDiarmid embraced the octopus as a many-branched model of the cosmos in his epic 𝘈 𝘋𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘬 𝘔𝘢𝘯 𝘓𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘦 (1926)

Extract from Hugh MacDiarmid: Selected Poetry (Carcanet, 2004)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781857547566

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #modernism #modernist #Scots #Scotslanguage #MacDiarmid #HughMacDiarmid #OctopusDay

A mony-brainchin' candelabra fills
The lift and's lowin' wi' the stars;
The Octopus Creation is wallopin'
In coontless faddoms o' a nameless sea.
I am the candelabra, and burn
My endless candles to an Unkent God.
I am the mind and meanin' o' the octopus
That thraws its empty airms through a' th' Inane.

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23h

FOR THE LOVE OF WILLIE
by Agnes Owens

During WW2, 16-year-old Peggy falls in love with her married, older employer. 30 years later, in a psychiatric hospital, she looks to turn her teenage exploits into a romance novel…

A dramatisation of Agnes Owens’ darkly comic novella is currently available on BBC Sounds

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0033z6p

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

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29d

A gifted writer of gothic & horror fiction, Dorothy K. Haynes (1918–1987) was born #OTD, 12 Oct. Haynes & her twin brother spent 4 years in Aberlour Orphanage, from 1929 to 1933: in 2023, we republished her long out-of-print childhood memoir, 𝘏𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘠𝘦 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘬

🎂 🧵

1/5

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/haste-ye-back/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #gothic #horror #weird #weirdfiction #weirdtales #memoir #childhood #Aberlour

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29d

Agnes Owens: dame of darkly comic working-class stories
4 Nov, National Library of Scotland, Glasgow – free

Alasdair Gray called her “the most unfairly neglected of all living Scottish authors”. Owens began her writing career after attending a writer’s class in her middle-age “just to get out of the house”.

Agnes Owens’ archives can secure her status as a major Scottish literary figure.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/agnes-owens-dame-of-darkly-comic-working-class-stories-tickets-2003294557950

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #20thcentury #workingclasswriters #archive

Edited 27d ago