Eggplant.place

231d

Nineteen Eighty-Four might have been inspired by George Orwell’s fear of drowning

By Nathan Waddell

Nineteen Eighty-Four filled with references to sinking ships, drowning people and the dread of oceanic engulfment

https://theconversation.com/nineteen-eighty-four-might-have-been-inspired-by-george-orwells-fear-of-drowning-251289?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%2018%202025%20-%203419634842&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%2018%202025%20-%203419634842+CID_88b1f9d785e5a0d2e282e13c171ed621&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=Nineteen%20Eighty-Four%20might%20have%20been%20inspired%20by%20George%20Orwells%20fear%20of%20drowning

#books #literature

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205d

The Brilliance and Privilege of Jane Austen and Julia Margaret Cameron

It is crucial to grapple with the colonial structures that helped sustain the lives and work of the two 19th-century contemporaries, both celebrated as feminist heroines.

By Alexandra M. Thomas

https://hyperallergic.com/1027123/the-brilliance-and-privilege-of-jane-austen-and-julia-margaret-cameron-morgan-library/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Pride%2C%20Prejudice%2C%20and%20Privilege&utm_campaign=D071525

Jane Austen at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/68

#Literature #Photography

Portrait of Jane Austen, c. 1810 by Cassandra Austen.

Jane Austen is shown seated, facing slightly to her right (the viewer’s left), with her eyes glancing sideways. Her expression is often interpreted as wary, skeptical, or reserved, with tightly pressed lips.

She wears a high-waisted Regency gown with a frilled neckline and short sleeves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Austen#/media/File:CassandraAusten-JaneAusten(c.1810)_hires.jpg

ALT

Title: Julia Margaret Cameron
Artist: Henry Herschel Hay Cameron (British, 1852–1911)
Date: 1870
Medium: Albumen silver print from glass negative

This is a photographic portrait of Julia Margaret Cameron, the renowned Victorian photographer, who was also the mother of the photographer, Henry Herschel Hay Cameron.

Julia is shown in a three-quarter view, facing slightly to her left (viewer’s right). Her head is gently turned, eyes looking off-camera with an introspective, almost mystical expression, characteristic of how she posed her own subjects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Julia_Margaret_Cameron_MET_DP114480_-_Restoration.jpg

ALT

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230d

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds, & the Paranormal
Scotland’s Darkest Folklore

Currently available on BBC Sounds: exploring tales of selkies, kelpies, & the ancient figure of the Cailleach. Maddy & Anthony's guest today is Donald Smith, founding director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre, & a storyteller who has written & lectured widely on the folklore of Scotland.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0l2hncz

#Scottish #literature #folklore #supernatural #myth #paranormal #storytelling #Scotland

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209d

I sowed nightscented stocks with the halfgrown hope
that this was more like gardening
than impatiens in pots…

—Angela McSeveney, “Windowbox”
published in Modern Scottish Women Poets, @canongatebooks 2003

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Angela McSeveney
Windowbox

I sowed nightscented stocks with the halfgrown hope
that this was more like gardening
than impatiens in pots.

They grew anaemic and spindly
coated by dust from the street.
From the ground they looked like weeds.

Nothing flashy or flowery
like a trumpetting hippaestrum
or a petal drenched Black-eyed Susan

and even I who planted them
rarely thought to look out
except maybe in the evenings

when the cool damp of Summer rain
sweated in the air
like an extra sense

and the night scent swam in
clear as spearmint
and soothed away the city noise.

Then there grew a garden:
rosebeds and herbs,
tangles of scarlet runners.

ALT

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230d

On seeing Iran in the news, I want to say

my grandmother was called Nasreen,
that she died two years ago in Tabriz
and I couldn’t go to say goodbye,
that she knew nothing of power,
nuclear or otherwise…

—Marjorie Lotfi, “On seeing Iran in the news, I want to say”
published in THE WRONG PERSON TO ASK (Bloodaxe, 2024). D.A. Prince reviews THE WRONG PERSON TO ASK on The Friday Poem:

https://thefridaypoem.substack.com/p/the-friday-poem-on-16th-may-2025

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Iran

Marjorie Lotfi
On seeing Iran in the news, I want to say

my grandmother was called Nasreen,
that she died two years ago in Tabriz
and I couldn’t go to say goodbye,
that she knew nothing of power,
nuclear or otherwise. I want to say
that the bonfires for Chahar Shanbeh Suri
were built by our neighbour’s hands;
as children we were taught to jump over
and not be caught by the flames. I want to say
my cousin Elnaz, the one born after I left,
has a son and two degrees in Chemistry,
and had trouble getting a job. I want to say
that the night we swam towards
the moon hanging over the horizon
of the Caspian Sea, we found ourselves
kneeling on a sandbar we couldn’t see
like a last gift. I want to say
I’m the wrong person to ask.

ALT

Edited 230d ago

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209d

There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window…

—Edwin Morgan, “Strawberries”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

Hot poetry for a hot day 🍓🍓🍓

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781784109967

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #summer #love #lovepoem #LGBTQ

Strawberries
Edwin Morgan

There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window
facing each other
your knees held in mine
the blue plates in our laps
the strawberries glistening
in the hot sunlight
we dipped them in sugar
looking at each other
not hurrying the feast
for one to come
the empty plates

laid on the stone together
with the two forks crossed
and I bent towards you
sweet in that air
in my arms
abandoned like a child
from your eager mouth
the taste of strawberries
in my memory
lean back again
let me love you

let the sun beat
on our forgetfulness
one hour of all
the heat intense
and summer lightning
on the Kilpatrick hills

let the storm wash the plates

ALT

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206d

Heard ye o’ the tree o’ France,
I watna what’s the name o’t;
Around it a’ the patriots dance,
Weel Europe kens the fame o’t…

—“The Tree of Liberty”, attributed to Robert Burns (though this is disputed). First published in Chambers’ THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BURNS (1838), “from a MS. in the possession of Mr James Duncan, Mosesfield, near Glasgow.”

🇫🇷 A poem for Bastille Day

Text available here:
https://www.rbwf.org.uk/poems/the-tree-of-liberty

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#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #poem #RobertBurns #BastilleDay

Text too long for ALT text – however the full poem text is available via the link in the post

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230d

Why America Can’t Get Enough of The Wizard of Oz

Hazel Gaynor Celebrates the Films, Prequels, Sequels, and More

https://lithub.com/why-america-cant-get-enough-of-the-wizard-of-oz/

Wizard of Oz at PG
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55

#books #literature

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230d

Sigrid Nunez on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

In Conversation with Michael Kelleher for the Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast

https://lithub.com/sigrid-nunez-on-f-scott-fitzgeralds-the-great-gatsby/

The Great Gatsby at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64317

#books #literature

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230d

Finding Briseis: On Resurrecting a Forgotten Woman from Homer’s Iliad

Emily Hauser Explores Ancient Greek Visions of Gender

https://lithub.com/finding-briseis-on-resurrecting-a-forgotten-woman-from-homers-iliad/

The Iliad at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6130

#books #literature #mythology

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230d

I have fled through land and sea, blank land and sea,
because my house is besieged by murderers
And I was wrecked in the ocean, crushed and swept,
Spilling salt angry tears on the salt waves…

—Edwin Muir, “The refugees born for a land unknown”
published in Collected Poems, 1921–1958 (Faber, 1960)

20 June is World Refugee Day

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #refugees #WorldRefugeeDay #asylum #humanrights

Edwin Muir
‘The refugees born for a land unknown’

The refugees born for a land unknown
We have dismissed their wrongs, now dull and old,
And little judgment days lost in the dark.

‘I have fled through land and sea, blank land and sea,
Because my house is besieged by murderers
And I was wrecked in the ocean, crushed and swept,
Spilling salt angry tears on the salt waves,
My life waste water drawn down through a hole,
Yet lived. And now with alien eyes I see
The flowering trees on the unreal hills,
And in an English garden all afternoon
I watch the bees among the lavender.
Bees are at home, and think they have their place,
And I outside.
Footsteps on the stairs, two heavy, two light,
The door opens. Since then I remember nothing,
But this room in a place where no doors open.
I think the world died many years ago.’

ALT

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230d

Use no names. Roads
have been whited out,
redacted. Hone your oldest sense…

—Pippa Little, “For Refuge”
published in AIBLINS: New Scottish Political Poetry (Luath Press, 2016)

20 June is World Refugee Day

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldRefugeeDay #refugees #humanrights

For Refuge
Pippa Little

Use no names. Roads
have been whited out,
redacted. Hone your oldest sense.
Learn the wind,
memorise where it goes
bearing your odours. The truck-stops
are roofless churches.
Comma-birds on power lines
swollen by rain
fall away.
Comfort yourself,
there will be stars in the dark
travelling towards you,
smaller and smaller.
Trust the earth
with your bandaged feet,
the pockets sewn shut by your mother.
Carry only such things
as snowflakes, eyelashes,
for the future may not make you out.

ALT

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230d

I would like to tell her not to wear such flimsy shoes,
that rubble contains the whole spectrum of knowable
and unknowable dangers…

—Marjorie Lotfi, “Picture of Girl and Small Boy (Burij, Gaza, 2014)”
published in THE WRONG PERSON TO ASK (Bloodaxe Books, 2023)

20 June is World Refugee Day

Photo: REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly

https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/idUSRTR40EE6/undefined

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #refugees #WorldRefugeeDay #humanrights #Gaza

Picture of Girl and Small Boy (Burij, Gaza, 2014)
Marjorie Lotfi

I would like to tell her not to wear such flimsy shoes,
that rubble contains the whole spectrum of knowable
and unknowable dangers: sheets of metal ripped
to knife edge, live wires, bloated arms reaching

for light. Her hair, scraped back into a ponytail,
is open to sky; remnants of buildings filter down
one concrete chunk at a time, and the midday bells
of rockets ring out above her. She carries a boy

on her still narrow hips, his legs entwined around
her yellow dungarees. Like a rodeo rider, his left arm
grips her shoulder to steady himself, or her,
while his torso reels back and away; his body

is asking to slow down, to turn back. Instead,
her eyes comb the ground for a next step, fingers
of her free hand curled into a claw, as if
to frighten off what she somehow sees ahead.

ALT

A Palestinian girl carries a child across rubble from a building that police said was destroyed by an Israeli air strike, in the Burij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, August 1, 2014. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly.

Marjorie Lotfi's poem describes the picture in detail:

Picture of Girl and Small Boy (Burij, Gaza, 2014)
Marjorie Lotfi

I would like to tell her not to wear such flimsy shoes,
that rubble contains the whole spectrum of knowable
and unknowable dangers: sheets of metal ripped
to knife edge, live wires, bloated arms reaching

for light. Her hair, scraped back into a ponytail,
is open to sky; remnants of buildings filter down
one concrete chunk at a time, and the midday bells
of rockets ring out above her. She carries a boy

on her still narrow hips, his legs entwined around
her yellow dungarees. Like a rodeo rider, his left arm
grips her shoulder to steady himself, or her,
while his torso reels back and away; his body

is asking to slow down, to turn back. Instead,
her eyes comb the ground for a next step, fingers
of her free hand curled into a claw, as if
to frighten off what she somehow sees ahead.

ALT

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230d

Frae the broo o’ a brae I saw them gang,
I saw them hirple to a lanesome shore.
I saw them pass abune the ferly seals
Withouten keel and sail and oar…

—William Jeffrey, “The Refugees”
Published in A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS (ASL, 2017)

20 June is World Refugee Day

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #WorldRefugeeDay #refugees #humanrights

William Jeffrey
The Refugees

‘Arise and flee into Egypt’

‘There’s a carline walkin’ the road ootby,
A body wi’ hair o’ the streekit snaw,
And an auld man daunders at her side,
A chiel that’s laggie and bent in twa.’

‘They maun be folk frae a fremit toun.
Bid them come in and bide a wee.’
Sae the carline and the auld man came
And supp’d guid brose anent the swee.

I speer’d the taen, and I speer’d the tither,
And scant the answer did I get—
But O, the licht in their eldren e’en
Shone frae some gouden unkenned yett.

Quo’ the carline frail, ‘There’s hame nae mair
In kintras raxt on the crookit sword’;
But the bodach murmured, ‘Nay, there’s hame
Where folks are free wi’ the kindly word.

‘Natheless,’ quo’ she, ‘gang west, my son,
Westlins to isles o’ Bride and the sea.’
Syne they rose and quaitlike went frae the door
And steppit west by the flowery lea.

Frae the broo o’ a brae I saw them gang,
I saw them hirple to a lanesome shore.
I saw them pass abune the ferly seals
Withouten keel and sail and oar.

I saw them gang in a siller glore,
Walkin’ the sea in’ a calm sae still—
The braid eard faulded like a rose
And Bethlehem gloss’d an island hill.

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205d

I can see da rüfs aa taekit, an da hens aroond da door;
Fok kerryin twartree paets hame, an rigs delled every voar.
Aa da lums ir reekin, an I hear da happy soonds
O peerie bairns skirlin, as dey play dem ower da toons…

—“Da Clearance”, by Rhoda Bulter (1929–94), born #OTD, 15 July

A 🎂🧵 – 1/3

Listen to Rhoda Bulter reading “Da Clearance” here

https://www.shetlanddialect.org.uk/da-clearance

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #Shetland #Shetlandic

Da Clearance
Rhoda Bulter

I can see da rüfs aa taekit, an da hens aroond da door;
Fok kerryin twartree paets hame, an rigs delled every voar.
Aa da lums ir reekin, an I hear da happy soonds
O peerie bairns skirlin, as dey play dem ower da toons.

I see eens sittin roond da fire, an twartree mair oot by;
Sookin infants at da breest, an weemen gjaan ta cry.
Da tochtfil, tried faces o dem at’s lived ower lang;
Fractious bairns feytin sleep, an sensin somethin wrang.

I hear a lood, lood knockin, an da crump o monny feet;
Men's voices raised in anger, an da bairns start to greet.
I see da fok aa girded oot afore da laandloard’s men;
An aa da bits a things dey hed, fired ower da briggy-stane.

I see da bare waas staandin, an aa da laand lie green;
Lang syne da fire wis slokkit, an monny a year is geen.
Noo dey aa hae equal portions o aert ta tak dir sleep.
Tell me, wis it wirt it aa for twartree extry sheep?

ALT

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229d

How Four Literary Icons Chose the Pen Names That Made Them Famous

Kirsty McHugh and Ian Scott Explore the Reasoning Behind Some Very Well Known Pseudonyms

By Kirsty McHugh and Ian Scott

https://lithub.com/how-four-literary-icons-chose-the-pen-names-that-made-them-famous/?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&utm_id=01JY6TEY6W2S7C820Q39F5H0FC&_kx=3MZUehzXM-41qlWAMPUiuNZadX2p0SByuNf_t0eMLB0.U5D8ER

#books #literature #biography

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228d

Fade then, light; but longing never will.
Midsummer makes the west spectacular
and even gives its last glow a show
of reluctance, as if it had postponed
midnight…

—Edwin Morgan, “21 June”
Published in CATHURES (Carcanet, 2002)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781857546170/cathures/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #midsummer #EdwinMorgan

Edwin Morgan
21 June

Fade then, light; but longing never will.
Midsummer makes the west spectacular
and even gives its last glow a show
of reluctance, as if it had postponed
midnight. But midnight is too faithful.
You're back among the black, the black,
you're down and fit to drown, to drown,
you're padding into nightmare town.
You haven't got a house, a bed-light,
there are no clocks or telephones out there,
you are on your own, you have a large panic
waiting to break through your chest, you are panting,
you count, as it arrives, each brimming pang.
What a clutch of sheets! What a parody of pain!

The longest day, the night is not so long.
You fling back the curtains, the morning sky
is like a meadow. What is it you want?
I don't know. You cannot walk there. No.
So what do you want? The morning, perhaps,
and then I want the day, another day.

ALT

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228d

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day…

—Robert Louis Stevenson, “Bed in Summer”
published in A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES (1885)

#Scottish #literature #poem 3poetry #summer #kidlit #19thcentury #Victorian #Edinburgh #RobertLouisStevenson

Bed in Summer
by Robert Louis Stevenson

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

ALT

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228d

The story of Nastenka: Why 'White Nights' is taking the world by storm

by Aakanksha Sharma

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/books/web-stories/the-story-of-nastenka-why-white-nights-is-taking-the-world-by-storm/photostory/121987234.cms

White Nights at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36034

#books #literature

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228d

My seventy-seven-year-old father
put his reading glasses on
to help my mother do the buttons
on the back of her dress…

—“George Square”, by Jackie Kay
LIFE MASK (Bloodaxe, 2005)

Hear Jackie Kay read this poem on the Poetry Archive:

https://poetryarchive.org/poem/george-square/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #peace

George Square
by Jackie Kay

My seventy-seven-year-old father
put his reading glasses on
to help my mother do the buttons
on the back of her dress.
‘What a pair the two of us are!’
my mother said, ‘Me with my sore wrist,
you with your bad eyes, your soft thumbs!’

And off they went, my two parents
to march against the war in Iraq,
him with his plastic hips, her with her arthritis
to congregate at George Square where the banners
waved at each other like old friends, flapping,
where they’d met for so many marches over their years,
for peace on earth, for pity’s sake, for peace, for peace.

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228d

It is a land of wee
hard men and all I
am wanted for is to
stand and cheer…

Prof Alan Riach considers the life & work of the poet & playwright Joan Ure (1918–1978) – born #OTD, 22 June

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https://www.thenational.scot/news/17455955.joan-ure-the-scots-poet-and-playwright-who-set-a-precedent/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poet #drama #playwright #20thcentury #womenwriters

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182d

W.H. Auden’s 1941 Syllabus Asked Students to Read 32 Great Literary Works, Totaling 6,000 Pages

https://www.openculture.com/2025/07/w-h-audens-1941-syllabus-asked-students-to-read-32-great-literary-works-totaling-6000-pages.html

#books #literature

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207d

He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.

And another, and another.
He couldn’t stop…

—Norman MacCaig, “Small Boy”
Published in The Poems of Norman MacCaig, Birlinn 2011

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #NormanMacCaig

Text of a poem, dated July 1985

Small boy
by Norman MacCaig

He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.

And another, and another.
He couldn’t stop.

He wasn’t trying to fill the sea.
He wasn’t trying to empty the beach.

He was just throwing away,
nothing else but.

Like a kitten playing
he was practising for the future

when there’ll be so many things
he’ll want to throw away

if only his fingers will unclench
and let them go.

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227d

Schyr Hanry myssit the noble king…

Robert I, King of Scots, killed Sir Henry de Bohun in single combat on the first day of the Battle of Bannockburn #OTD, 23 June 1314. The epic vernacular poem “The Brus” by John Barbour (c.1320–1395) describes the event

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https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/critical/aboutus/resources/stella/projects/starn/poetry/the-brus/book-12/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #medieval #14thcentury #history #MiddleAges #Bannockburn #epic #vernacular #poem #Scots #Scotslanguage