Eggplant.place

47d

RE: https://mastodon.scot/@scotlit/116980516916106856

Josephine Tey’s Golden Age

Available on YouTube: the fourth episode of Queens of Crime at War, a six-part Shedunnit series looking at what the best writers from the golden age of detective fiction did once that period came to an end with the start of the Second World War. Caroline Crampton discusses Josephine Tey with Tey’s biographer Jennifer Morag Henderson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwLqXm4SH6Q

#Scottish #literature #crimefiction #womenwriters #20thcentury #JosephineTey #WW2

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46d

A bird’s voice chinks and tinkles
Alone in the gaunt reedbed –
Tiny silversmith
Working late in the evening…

—Norman MacCaig, “July evening”
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 #summer #naturepoetry #naturewriting

Norman MacCaig
July evening

A bird’s voice chinks and tinkles
Alone in the gaunt reedbed –
Tiny silversmith
Working late in the evening.

I sit and listen. The rooftop
With a quill of smoke stuck in it
Wavers against the sky
In the dreamy heat of summer.

Flowers’ closing time: bee lurches
Across the hayfield, singing
And feeling its drunken way
Round the air’s invisible corners.

And grass is grace. And charlock
Is gold of its own bounty.
The broken chair by the wall
Is one with immortal landscapes.

Something has been completed
That everything is part of,
Something that will go on
Being completed forever.

ALT

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42d

“The plotless beauty of his writing, and its fearless look at the emptiness of his own life, put ‘the Scottish Beat’ on a par with Kafka and Camus”

—Tony O’Neill on “The junky genius of Alexander Trocchi (1925–1984)”, born #OTD, 30 July. A 🎂 🧵

1/9

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/aug/23/thejunkygeniusofalexander

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #Trocchi #modernism

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27d

Acknowledging Agnes Owens: a celebration of her writing & legacy
24 September, Òran Mór, Glasgow – free

Launch event for the Byres Road Book Festival, in collaboration with the Agnes Owens Archive – with Dani Garavelli, Kirstin Innes, William Letford, & Chitra Ramaswamy

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/acknowledging-agnes-owens-a-celebration-of-her-writing-and-legacy-tickets-1995450547303

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

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27d

Nae wind comes owre sae free
Upon the yirden rose
As hill-blawn winds that gae
Whaur the white bloom grows…

—William Soutar, “Summer Song”
published in WILLIAM SOUTAR: Collected Works (Tippermuir, 2024)

https://tippermuirbooks.co.uk/product/william-soutar-collected-works-vols-1-2/

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

Summer Song
by William Soutar

Nae wind comes owre sae free
Upon the yirden rose
As hill-blawn winds that gae
Whaur the white bloom grows.

There is nae biggit bower
Sae gledsome for the sicht
As the sma', wilder'd fleur
Flanterin' wi' licht.

And herts will tine their fear
Whan love sae freely blaws,
Open to joy and care
As the sma', white rose.

ALT

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36d

Duin’ àrd, tana
’s fiasag bheag air,
’s locair ’na làimh…

—“Cisteachan-Laighe” (“Coffins”)
from Creachadh na Clarsaich / Plundering the Harp (Macdonald, 1982) by Ruaraidh MacThòmais (Derick Thomson, 1921–2012) – born #OTD, 5 Aug. A 🎂 🧵

1/7

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/cisteachan-laighe/

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

Cisteachan-Laighe
Ruaraidh MacThòmais

Duin’ àrd, tana
’s fiasag bheag air,
’s locair ’na làimh:
gach uair theid mi seachad
air bùth-shaoirsneachd sa’ bhaile,
’s a thig gu mo chuinnlean fàileadh na min-sàibh,
thig gu mo chuimhne cuimhne an àit ud,
le na cisteachan-laighe,
na h-ùird ’s na tairgean,
na saibh ’s na sgeilbean,
is mo sheanair crom,
is sliseag bho shliseag ga locradh
bhon bhòrd thana lom.

Mus robh fhios agam dè bh’ ann bàs;
beachd, bloigh fios, boillsgeadh
den dorchadas, fathann de’n t-sàmhchair.
’S nuair a sheas mi aig uaigh,
là fuar Earraich, cha dainig smuain
thugam air na cisteachan-laighe
a rinn esan do chàch:
’sann a bha mi ’g iarraidh dhachaigh,
far am biodh còmhradh, is tea, is blàths.

Is anns an sgoil eile cuideachd,
san robh saoir na h-inntinn a’ locradh,
cha tug mi ’n aire do na cisteachan-laighe,
ged a bha iad ’nan suidhe mun cuairt orm;
cha do dh’ aithnich mi ’m brèid Beurla,
an liomh Gallda bha dol air an fhiodh,
cha do leugh mi na facail air a’ phràis,
cha do thuig mi gu robh mo chinneadh a’ dol bàs.
Gus an dainig gaoth fhuar an Earraich-sa
a locradh a’ chridhe;
gus na dh’ fhairich mi na tairgean a’ dol tromham,
’s cha shlànaich tea no còmhradh an cràdh.

ALT

Coffins
Derick Thomson

A tall thin man
with a short beard,
and a plane in his hand:
whenever I pass
a joiner’s shop in the city,
and the scent of sawdust comes to my nostrils,
memories return of that place,
with the coffins,
the hammers and nails,
saws and chisels,
and my grandfather, bent,
planing shavings
from a thin, bare plank.

Before I knew what death was;
or had any notion, a glimmering
of the darkness, a whisper of the stillness.
And when I stood at his grave,
on a cold Spring day, not a thought
came to me of the coffins
he made for others:
I merely wanted home
where there would be talk, and tea, and warmth.

And in the other school also,
where the joiners of the mind were planing,
I never noticed the coffins,
though they were sitting all round me;
I did not recognise the English braid,
the Lowland varnish being applied to the wood,
I did not read the words on the brass,
I did not understand that my race was dying.
Until the cold wind of this Spring came
to plane the heart;
until I felt the nails piercing me,
and neither tea nor talk will heal the pain.

ALT

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21d

Starting 31 Aug, BBC Radio 4: A WORKING MOTHER, by Agnes Owens (1926–2014)

Ten years after WW2, our unreliable narrator Betty – arch, witty, clever – is married with children & feels trapped. While her husband, Adam, drinks and complains, Betty flirts with their best friend Brendan, tries to avoid the roving hands of her new employer, & plots her escape…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0030x97

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

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15d

“The life of John Buchan reads like one of his adventure stories… he roamed both continents & careers alike, leaping from one cliffhanger to the next”

John Buchan (1875–1940) – from son of the manse to Governor-General of Canada – was born #OTD, 26 August.

A 🎂 🧵

1/9

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2025/12/the-reign-of-saturn/

#Scottish #literature #JohnBuchan #20thcentury

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9d

A 🎂 🧵 for Violet Jacob (1863–1946) – poet, novelist, short story writer, & key figure in the 20th-century Scottish renaissance & Scots language revival – born #OTD, 1 September

1/8

https://www.scottishwomenwritersontheweb.net/writers-a-to-z/violet-jacob

#Scottish #literature #Scots #Scotslanguage #19thCentury #20thcentury #WomenWriters #VioletJacob

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8d

“Though her characters struggle, their hardship does not sanctify them. Theirs is not an ennobling suffering. ‘I don’t write about people that are nice people,’ Owens said. ‘They’ve got to be sinners, with a wee touch of goodness here and there, you know.’”

Roxani Krystalli on Agnes Owens, in GUTTER Magazine

https://www.guttermag.co.uk/reviews/a-wee-touch-of-goodness

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

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8d

Currently available on BBC Sounds: A WORKING MOTHER, by Agnes Owens

Ten years after WW2, our unreliable narrator Betty – arch, witty, clever – is married with children & feels trapped. While her husband, Adam, drinks and complains, Betty plots her escape…

@bookstodon

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0030x96

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

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7d

The mile-high buildings flashed, flushed, greyed, went dark,
greyed, flushed, flashed, chameleons under flak
of cloud and sun…

—Edwin Morgan, “Clydegrad”
from CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

Today, 3 September, is Skyscraper Day

1/2

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #sonnet #skyscraper #SkyscraperDay #EdwinMorgan #Glasgow #scifipoetry

Clydegrad
Edwin Morgan

It was so fine we lingered there for hours.
The long broad streets shone strongly after rain.
Sunset blinded the tremble of the crane
we watched from, dazed the heliport-towers.
The mile-high buildings flashed, flushed, greyed, went dark,
greyed, flushed, flashed, chameleons under flak
of cloud and sun. The last far thunder-sack
ripped and spilled its grumble. Ziggurat-stark,
a power-house reflected in the lead
of the old twilight river leapt alive
lit up at every window, and a boat
of students rowed past, slid from black to red
into the blaze. But where will they arrive
with all, boat, city, earth, like them, afloat?

ALT

Book cover

EDWIN MORGAN
CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS

edited by
HAMISH WHYTE

Carcanet Classics

The cover image shows a view looking up the face of a concrete tower block, angled against a star-strewn sky – as if the skyscraper was a starship, cruising the cosmos.

ALT

Edited 7d ago

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1d

A Home in Space: Edwin Morgan’s Selected Concrete, Visual & Sound Poetry
17 September, University of Glasgow – free

An evening to discover & celebrate the incredible body of visual & sound poetry by Edwin Morgan, much of which is rarely seen & will now be available in this significant new volume from Reaktion Books.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-home-in-space-edwin-morgans-selected-concrete-visual-sound-poetry-tickets-1996801819996

#Scottish #literature #poetry #visualpoetry #concretepoetry #soundpoetry #EdwinMorgan #20thcentury

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