Eggplant.place

99d

dear small daughter for a long time I did not write
what had already become past-tense was past-tense
and I am sorry I was not able to hold it as one might
in a dream hold a stream of water and sing it to sleep…

—Sheila Black, “Climate (7) (Past Tense)”
published in BREAK IN CASE OF SILENCE: New Writing Scotland 39 (2021)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws39/

#Scottish #literature #WorldEnvironmentDay‌ #poem #poetry #climate #climatechange #environment #globalwarming #globalheating #climatecrisis

Sheila Black
Climate (7) (Past Tense)

dear small daughter for a long time I did not write
what had already become past-tense was past-tense
and I am sorry I was not able to hold it as one might
in a dream hold a stream of water and sing it to sleep
and I am sorry that I told you this image as if it were
in truth perdurable plangent and constant moon
over our seas when it is the shifting that matters.
dear small the birds the mockingbirds they sang
in the middle of the night and for this we cursed
them but then we came upon their nests in the black
of day noon when the sun is a diamond burning
through however much blue and the two of them
circled so tirelessly with their wings fanning the
turquoise eggs inside the nest of dead grass and we
understood we were not the only ones but even this
could not stop us from doing as we had done all
our lives long and the cars we pulled out of driveways
and the highways that took us into the buzzing
electric of buildings poured in dense concrete
and the cooling chemicals seeping and cycling
as though through calm artificial hearts and outside
unnoticed the ghost-blue of juniper needle and berry
and the ghost-rising of smoke from the fires we
claimed we had not set. dear daughter now that we
must use the past-tense for what we thought was ours
now as we move into the possible distance I open
my hand to give you this picture of two wings.

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74d

Colin Bramwell’s FOWER PESSOAS has won the 2025 Duas Leabhair na Gàidhealtacht / Highland Book Prize

“FOWER PESSOAS is a bold reimagining of Fernando Pessoa’s poetry… Colin Bramwell puts all four of [Fernando] Pessoa’s heteronyms into a present-day Scots-language vernacular, & so creates a parochial Pessoa for our own times”

https://www.highlandbookprize.org.uk/winner/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #FernandoPessoa #Scots #Scotslanguage

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61d

I wish my whole battened
heart were a property
like this, with swallows
in every room – so at ease

they twitter and preen
from the picture frames
like an audience in the gods
before an opera…

—Kathleen Jamie, “Swallows”
published in The Tree House (Picador, 2004)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/the-tree-house/9781509891825

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #swallows

Swallows
Kathleen Jamie

I wish my whole battened
heart were a property
like this, with swallows
in every room – so at ease

they twitter and preen
from the picture frames
like an audience in the gods
before an opera

and in the mornings
wheel above my bed
in a mockery of pity
before winging it

up the stairwell
to stream out into light

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76d

Obstinate Daughters: shining a light on the women who sparked the American Revolution

A revealing new book, eight years in the making, singles out rebellious women from US history whose stories have often been sidelined

by Martin Pengelly

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/24/obstinate-daughters-book-women-american-revolution

Books about Women in the American Revolution at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=women+american+revolution

#books #literature #history

Moll Pitcher at the Battle of Monmouth.

Inscribed bottom margin center, "MOLL PITCHER AT THE BATTLE OF MONMOUTH. / From the orginal Picture in possession of the Publishers. / Entered according to the act of Congress, AD 1856, by Martin, Johnson & Co. in the clerk's office of the district court of the southern district of New York."

Inscribed lower left margin, "PAINTED BY D. M. CARTER." Inscribed lower right, "ENGRAVED BY J. ROGERS."

A dynamic battle scene showing Molly Pitcher right of center standing in front of a grass cannon on wheels being manned by two soldiers. An American flag bearer is immediately behind her. A third soldier lies dead in the foreground in front of the cannon. Molly holds a ramrod, while her water bucket lies on the ground in front of her. George Washington and his officers appear in the right distance. Other American soldiers are chasing the British in the left hand section of the engraving. A second female figure has raised a hat above her head, behind a male kneeling to help a wounded soldier. Another soldier rests on a rock in the lower left foreground beside a pool of water. Smoke from cannon fire fills the sky.

https://monmouthhistory.emuseum.com/objects/714/moll-pitcher-at-the-battle-of-monmouth

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73d

“A gripping, beautifully written, well-paced but introspective novel, it is perhaps Buchan’s finest achievement. He based the landscapes and the journey closely on some of his own travels in the northwest as Governor-General of Canada, and the book reflects clearly the immensity and variety not only of Canada’s landscapes but its peoples”

—Jordan M Poss on John Buchan’s SICK HEART RIVER 🇨🇦🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

https://www.jordanmposs.com/blog/2022/6/30/sick-heart-river

#Scottish #literature #novel #JohnBuchan #20thcentury #Canada #CanadaDay

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98d

Out From the Shadows: On Rediscovering Mary Shelley’s Half-Sister, Fanny Imlay

Jupiter Jones Explores the Life of a Remarkable Woman Forgotten by History

https://lithub.com/out-from-the-shadows-on-rediscovering-mary-shelleys-half-sister-fanny-imlay/?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&utm_id=01KTBZWA593QES5P9YEQED3A78&_kx=3MZUehzXM-41qlWAMPUiuNZadX2p0SByuNf_t0eMLB0.U5D8ER

More information about Fanny Imlay via @wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Imlay

#Books #Literature

Fanny Imlay.

A 19th-century portrait of a young woman in a soft pink/lavender dress, wearing a small gold cross pendant.

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98d

Unseen Edith Wharton short story is published more than a century later

The Men Who Saved the World, the Pulitzer winner’s lost manuscript found in Yale archives, appears in Strand magazine

by Richard Luscombe

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/05/edith-wharton-short-story-published

Books by Edith Wharton at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/104

#Books #Literature

Edith Wharton à l'âge de 45 ans (photo de 1907).

Photograph taken in Newport, Rhode Island, of author Edith Wharton, wearing hat with a feather, coat with fur trim, and a fur muff. Image courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Wharton#/media/Fichier:Edith_Newbold_Jones_Wharton_in_hat_with_fur_muff.jpg

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61d

Well Versed Author Event: Iyad Hayatleh
15 July, online. Free.

A poetry reading & discussion with Iyad Hayatleh, as part of Open Book’s Well Versed series in partnership with StAnza Poetry Festival.

Iyad Hayatleh is a Palestinian poet & translator. He was born & grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, & has lived in Glasgow since 2000.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/well-versed-author-event-iyad-hayatleh-tickets-1992753410093

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Glasgow #Palestine

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98d

“The Sodgers”, by Alexander Scott (1920–1989)

Alexander Scott landed in Normandy in 1944 with the Gordon Highlanders, & saw action in the Ardennes & crossing the Rhine. He later became Head of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow, was president of ASL from 1976–79, & was a founding editor of our annual anthology NEW WRITING SCOTLAND

Today, 6 June, is the anniversary of D-Day

#Scottish #literature #DDay #poem #poetry #20thcentury #warpoem #warpoetry #WW2 #Scots #Scotslanguage

The Sodgers
by Alexander Scott

Nae wi the gallus captains
That niver jinkit war
But socht for glory's wildfire lowe
As wise men aince for anither star—

And nae wi the ramstam colonels
That leuch at the din o the drum
And skirled for the bleeze o battle's Inferno
As saunts micht skirl for Kingdom Come—

But aye wi the sweirt sodgers
That niver wished tae dee
And anelie marched the forrart road
Sen onie back they cudna see—

Near blind wi the reek o wappins
And the reek o leean words,
But niver near sae blind wi bluid
As faa in luve wi guns and swords.

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98d

Ye think thon wes the end?
Yon meetin in the wuids
When Thracian Orpheus heard the drum, the cries,
The whud o the bacchantes’ thrangan feet…

—“Orpheus”, by Tom Scott (1918–1995): born #OTD, 6 June
Published in A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS

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

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

Tom Scott
Orpheus

Ye think thon wes the end?
Yon meetin in the wuids
When Thracian Orpheus heard the drum, the cries,
The whud o the bacchantes’ thrangan feet
And, seik in saul,
Mad to be jyned for aye to his Eurydikee,
Strung his harp
And gaed to meet them wi a sang.
Ye think thon wes the end?

Na. Eftir the thrang breeled on, red
Fingert, bluidie-mawed, the riven limbs
Quiveran aye amang the mairtyred gress,
There wes a lull
And throu it syne a roun
And syne as muckle’s a moan
And syne a voice,
Yon voice o his
That quietit the forest and its fowk,
That reconcilit lion and lamb,
Ordert the rain,
Spoke frae the grund
And threept in the greitan tree
‘Euridikee! Euridikee!’

And at the name
A ferlie thing wes duin.
Thir broken bits o bodie, bits o bane,
Brisket, gash, airm and droukit hair
Cam thegither as gin some will
Mair nor the merely real
Had wrocht on them.
And on yon slauchtert grund was formed
Orpheus anew,
Orpheus the singer, Orpheus the makar,
Orpheus cleansed o the auld despair.
And by the halie tree
In the leaman licht o the wuid,
Squired by a houlet, a hawk and a doo,
Wes his Euridikee.

They say he made a new sang,
A nobler nor the auld,
And sings it aye in the great haa o the warld.

They say it will nevir end.

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74d

Oidhche san Taigh-tasgaidh | Night at the Museum
14 July, Hunterian Museum, Glasgow – £5

Bidh Oidhche san Taigh-tasgaidh a’ comharrachadh gu bheil Oilthigh Ghlaschu a’ cumail co-labhairt eadar-nàiseanta na Gàidhlig, Rannsachadh na Gàidhlig

Night at the Museum marks the University of Glasgow hosting the international conference of Gaelic studies, Rannsachadh na Gàidhlig

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/oidhche-san-taigh-tasgaidh-night-at-the-museum-tickets-1992484989239

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #music #song #poetry

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98d

We’re the D-Day Dodgers out in Italy,
Always on the vino, always on the spree…

—“The Ballad of the D-Day Dodgers”, a #WW2 soldiers’ song, to the tune of “Lili Marlene”, & collected by Hamish Henderson (1919–2002). The term was an insulting reference to Allied troops fighting in Italy in 1944 (none of whom, of course, were able to choose where & when to fight). Henderson fought in North Africa & Italy in WW2.

#Scottish #literature #song #poem #WW2 #DDay

Text too long for ALT text. The text can be found online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Day_Dodgers

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76d

A Good Read: Louise Welsh & Chris Brookmyre

Currently on BBC Sounds: Louise Welsh & Chris Brookmyre join Harriet Gillbert to discuss two of their favourite books: ESPEDAIR STREET by Iain Banks and MEMENTO MORI by Muriel Spark

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002xzs1

#Scottish #literature #books #novels #IainBanks #MurielSpark #LouiseWelsh #ChristopherBrookmyre

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97d

The Stormy Romance of Frédéric Chopin and George Sand

The decade-long relationship between the composer Chopin and the author Sand, though unlikely, was a testament to the Romantic belief in the virtues of genius.

https://www.thecollector.com/frederic-chopin-george-sand/

Sand at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/851

Books about Chopin at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/1660

#books #literature #music

George Sand by Jean-Baptiste Isabey, circa 1835. Sand stands at angle while her head is turned towards the viewer. Her hair is dark, parted in the middle, and pulled back. She is wearing a dark, heavy coat or jacket and ruffles run down the front of her shirt/dress.

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97d

Aonghas Dubh – Ceòl às na Briathran

The poet & writer Aonghas MacNeacail (1942–2022) was born #OTD, 7 June. This programme, originally aired on the BBC, is drawn from “Skerries, Trawlings, Tides” – a literary event celebrating Aonghas’s 80th birthday

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAb0LdDuaSk

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #AonghasMacNeacail #poetry

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97d

The Divine Comedy: How Dante Provided A New World Theory

The Divine Comedy is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkh2xlLmKzY

The Divine Comedy, illustrated by Gustave Doré is available at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8800

#Books #Literature #Art #History

There both, I thought, the eagle and myself
Did burn; and so intense th’ imagin’d flames,
That needs my sleep was broken off. As erst
Achilles shook himself, and round him roll’d
His waken’d eyeballs wond’ring where he was,
Whenas his mother had from Chiron fled
To Scyros, with him sleeping in her arms;...

Purgatory, Canto IX

It depicts a winged figure — an angel or divine messenger — soaring upward through dramatic clouds toward a radiant light source, likely the sun or a celestial glory.

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8800/pg8800-images.html

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As when, if Juno bid her handmaid forth,
Two arches parallel, and trick’d alike,
Span the thin cloud, the outer taking birth
From that within (in manner of that voice
Whom love did melt away, as sun the mist),
And they who gaze, presageful call to mind
The compact, made with Noah, of the world
No more to be o’erflow’d; about us thus
Of sempiternal roses, bending, wreath’d
Those garlands twain, and to the innermost
E’en thus th’ external answered...

PARADISE. Canto XII

Dante & Beatrice standing on a cloud, surrounded by rings of glowing angels.

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8800/pg8800-images.html

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144d

RE: https://mastodon.scot/@scotlit/116442704246019176

Soillse air Alasdair MacIlleathain, ùghdar fìor shoirbheachail eadarnàiseanta le Gàidhlig

MacLean thought he could have written better in Gaelic than English. Originally broadcast on BBC Alba, “Alistair MacLean – An Sgeulaiche” celebrates his work & laments his loss to Gaelic literature (in Gaelic with English subtitles).

@bookstodon

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

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #thriller #books #Gaidhlig #Gaelic

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61d

In Conversation with... Ian Rankin
14 August, Edinburgh. £14.50 / £16.50

In Conversation with Ian Rankin explores the career of the bestselling author behind detective John Rebus. His novels, translated into 36 languages, have been adapted for radio, stage & screen, and earned major honours including multiple Crime Writers' Association Dagger Awards, the Edgar Award, & the Deutscher Krimipreis.

https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/in-conversation-with-ian-rankin

#Scottish #literature #IanRankin #crimewriting #crimefiction

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256d

What was on summer reading lists 100 years ago, in 1925?

In the summer of 1925, long before podcasts, audiobooks and even paperbacks, holiday reading meant hoping a hardback fit in your suitcase.

By James Tugwell

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-28/summer-reading-list-1925-human-experience-time-travel/106172974

#books #literature

Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson ('Henry Handel Richardson'), ca. 1935.

Elliott & Fry - State Library of NSW P1/1477

The photograph shows Richardson as a mature woman, turned slightly toward the camera in a three-quarter view. She gazes directly at the viewer with a calm expression.

Richardson has distinctive wavy hair styled in the fashion of the 1930s, with gentle finger waves framing her face.

A luxurious dark fur coat or stole draped over her shoulders.

A light-colored blouse or dress with delicate lace or eyelet detailing along the neckline and front.

A pearl necklace that adds refinement to the ensemble

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Handel_Richardson#/media/File:Henry_(ethel)_Richardson_SLNSW_FL3290825.jpg

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75d

I have spent the past 6 months reading hundreds of poems by young people – I was surprised to find hope, not despair

by Sean Murphy

https://theconversation.com/i-have-spent-the-past-6-months-reading-hundreds-of-poems-by-young-people-i-was-surprised-to-find-hope-not-despair-285909

Books in Poetry (including The Blue Poetry Book by Andrew Lang) at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/60

#books #literature #poetry

AND NOTHING ELSE SAW ALL DAY LONG.

A detailed Victorian engraving of a young woman with flowing hair seated on horseback, leaning tenderly over an armored knight or figure resting against the horse's neck, set within a dense, twisted forest landscape with gnarled trees and rocky outcrops. The atmospheric, romantic illustration style is signed "L. Speed" in the lower left corner.

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/46515/pg46515-images.html#LA_BELLE_DAME_SANS_MERCY

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96d

We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.

Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being

#reading #Kundera #books #bookstodon @bookstodon #writers #author #novel #readingcommunity #literature #life

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96d

Columba returns, his curragh, shuddering
on the angry tide. As oyster-catchers wrestle
the whipped air, he gives thanks to this ancient highway,
to this rosary of isles and sea that links all supplications…

—Finola Scott, “Maelstroms”

Today, 8 June, is World Ocean Day

https://worldoceanday.org

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldOceanDay

Maelstroms
Finola Scott

Camas Cuil an t-Saimh, Iona

Columba returns, his curragh, shuddering
on the angry tide. As oyster-catchers wrestle
the whipped air, he gives thanks to this ancient highway,
to this rosary of isles and sea that links all supplications.
Alone now, he will rest and speak to his God.
Soul lightened, feet solid, he blesses the deep shingle,
the sweet dulse of this rock. With wind-tangled shells
rattling his shins he praises the hungry cries
of south-skeining geese, sings halleulia
to the watery gift of this isle, his sanctuary.
He doesn’t know to pray against the Warming,
that will shift the Stream over time. He knows
the heavens, the promise of light. Knows nothing
of ozone layers, of coral reefs dissolving, of the whirlpool
of plastics swirling, of oceans rising, of drownings.

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96d

“SCABBY QUEEN is a life and death struggle of a book: wounded, angry, beautiful, righteous, beaten and triumphant”
—A.L. Kennedy

Currently on BBC Sounds: award-winning writer Kirstin Innes talks about her second novel, SCABBY QUEEN. Published in 2020, the book explores the life of one-hit wonder & political activist Clio Campbell, who is found dead three days before her fifty-first birthday

@bookstodon

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002xdch

#Scottish #literature #novel

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75d

Poets are Liars

“if poetry genuinely is a truth-telling and poets truth-tellers, it seems important to demonstrate that what we do is falsifiable. What on earth would it mean to ‘lie’ in a poem?”

—Don Paterson on poetry, philosophy, & lies

https://northseapoets.substack.com/p/poets-are-liars

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poetictruth #truth #DonPaterson #philosophy