“I was baptised by the explosion of Scottish writing that burst forth in the nineties. I remember the glory of seeing your own people on the page, how it made me feel worthy, and really, really powerful.”
Five years after winning the Booker for Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart reflects on the pressures of being a prize winner, the queer canon, the politics of dialect, & how the arts have become less accessible for working-class people
How the Women of the Gothic Revival Inspired Christina Rossetti’s Poetry
https://www.thecollector.com/christina-rossetti-women-gothic-revival/
Books by Christina Rossetti at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/7041
Books by Georgina Fullerton at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2774
'
Books by Ann Radcliffe at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1147
Books by Letitia Elizabeth Landon at PG:
Rǫgnvaldr Kali Kolsson (c. 1100–1158), Earl of Orkney, died #OTD, 20 August.
Rǫgnvaldr was a skilled poet (& after his death – slightly surprisingly – canonised as St Ronald of Orkney – f.d. 20 August). Ian Crockatt has translated many of his poems; this one is from CRIMSONING THE EAGLE’S CLAW: The Viking Poems of Rǫgnvaldr Kali Kolsson (Arc Publications, 2014)
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#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Orkney #medieval #Viking #Norse
The Scottish Novel – book launch & seminar
5 Sept, Edinburgh – free, ticketed
This seminar presents papers by contributors to The International Companion to the Scottish Novel (ed. Cairns Craig) with a focus on literature from the 20th & 21st centuries
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-scottish-novel-tickets-1541851020909
American writer, literary critic and journalist Edmund Wilson was born #OTD in 1895.
Over his career, he contributed to numerous periodicals and his essays and reviews are often credited with influencing public and scholarly opinion on many subjects. Wilson was the author of more than twenty books, including Axel's Castle, Patriotic Gore, and Memoirs of Hecate County. He was a friend F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos.
Ian Hamilton Finlay’s revolutionary instincts
“This is a centenary for an agoraphobic poet once notorious for maintaining a small militia of supporters who vandalised the office of the Evening Standard’s art critic Brian Sewell; an artist who employed the help of collaborator Jessie McGuffie to ‘defend’ his project by punching the literary editor of the Scotsman in 1962.”
@litstudies
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/art/70812/ian-hamilton-finlays-revolutionary-instincts
#Scottish #literature #poetry #concretepoetry #20thcentury #IanHamiltonFinlay
Ardent on the beach at Rossnowlagh
on the last day of summer,
you ran through the shallows
throwing off shoes, and shirt and towel
like the seasons, the city’s years…
—Robin Robertson, “Donegal”
published in SWITHERING (Picador, 2006)
Listen to Robin Roberston read “Donegal” on the Poetry Archive:
French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer Blaise Pascal was born #OTD in 1623.
One of his most famous contributions in Mathematics is the Pascal's Theorem. Along with Pierre de Fermat, Pascal is credited with founding probability theory. He also made significant contributions to the study of binomial coefficients, which led to the formation of Pascal's Triangle.
Books by Blaise Pascal at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/7913
Amang the Friends of Early Days
9 September, Dumfries – tickets £6.13
Celebrating the joint residency at Robert Burns Ellisland Museum of Scots Makar Peter Mackay & former Jamaican Poet Laureate Lorna Goodison. They will reflect on how the local landscape shaped Burns’ writing in Scots, & explore how nature influences their own work – in Gaelic, & in the fusion of English & Jamaican Creole
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/amang-the-friends-of-early-days-tickets-1611560794719
#Scottish #Jamaican #literature #poetry #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #Creole #Robertburns
Ray’s Day, what is it?
A little more than three years ago, Ray Bradbury flew away to Mars for good (carelessly, he forgot to buy a return ticket) and now that he is gone, we miss a book lover of a rare kind. via @Ross
Guide to the classics: Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim sees humanity’s darkness
By Jamie Q. Roberts
Lord Jim at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/5658
“O’er a’ my labours sey your skill”
10 Sep, University of Glasgow – free
In this new poetry collection, across Scots, Gaelic and English, a wealth of contemporary poets respond to the work of the 18th-century Edinburgh poet Robert Fergusson.
This celebration will include readings of Fergusson's poetry, poets reading their own works responding to Fergusson, & discussion of Fergusson's life & legacy.
• in the beginning was the sound •
A 🎂 🧵 for Tom Leonard (1944–2018) – born #OTD, 22 August
📷: Front cover of Tom Leonard’s Intimate Voices 1965–1983 (Newcastle: Galloping Dog Press, 1984)
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#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #Glaswegian #voice #Scots #Scotslanguage #TomLeonard
And their judges spoke with one dialect,
but the condemned spoke with many voices.
And the prisons were full of many voices,
but never the dialect of the judges.
And the judges said:
“No-one is above the Law.”
—Tom Leonard, “And the judges said”
published in Situations Theoretical and Contemporary (Galloping Dog Press, 1986)
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #Glaswegian #voice #Scots #Scotslanguage #TomLeonard
yi mist yirsell so yi did
we aw skiptwirr ferz njumptaffit thi lights
YIZIR AW PINE THEY FERZ THIMORRA
o it wizza scream
thaht big shite wiz dayniz nut…
—Tom Leonard, “A Scream”
from Six Glasgow Poems (1967)
(rrose sounds like a proper caution, by the way)
https://www.tomleonard.co.uk/online-poetry-and-prose.html
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #Glaswegian #voice #Scots #Scotslanguage #TomLeonard
I like seeing nurse frieda knitting
as I like watching my wife knitting
as I liked watching my mother knitting
though she was more of a dabber
(plain and purl, plain and purl)…
—“in hospital” by Tom Leonard
efturryd geenuz iz speel
iboot whut wuz right
nwhut wuz rang
boot this nthat
nthi nix thing
a sayzti the bloke
nwhut izzit yi caw
yir joab jimmy…
—Tom Leonard, “liason coordinator”
from GHOSTIE MEN (Galloping Dog Press, 1980)
https://www.tomleonard.co.uk/online-poetry-and-prose/liasoncoordinator.html
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #Glaswegian #Scots #Scotslanguage #TomLeonard
one of those with quiet, naturally restrained, insistently monotoned voices
with that little selfcontained smile, always going on about Respect for History and the Abiding Sense of the Traditional…
—Tom Leonard, “The Elect”
published in MARKINGS 27, 2008
https://www.tomleonard.co.uk/online-poetry-and-prose/the-elect.html
“Don’t you find
the use of phonetic urban dialect
rather constrictive?”
—Tom Leonard, “Fathers and Sons”
published in Intimate Voices: Selected Work, 1965–1983 (Galloping Dog Press, 1984)
this is thi
six a clock
news thi
man said n
thi reason
a talk wia
BBC accent
iz coz yi
widny wahnt
mi ti talk
aboot thi
trooth wia
voice lik
wanna yoo
scruff. if
a toktaboot
thi trooth
lik wanna yoo
scruff yi
widny thingk
it wuz troo.
jist wanna yoo
scruff tokn.
—Tom Leonard, “The Six O’Clock News”
🎂 Tom Leonard, 22 Aug 1944
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #Glaswegian #voice #Scots #Scotslanguage #TomLeonard
These 'Blondes' are turning 100, and they're still a lot of fun
by Maureen Corrigan
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/11/nx-s1-5469836/gentlemen-prefer-blondes-review
Books by Anita Loos at PG:
Starlings return
black commas spill from the sky
festooning rooftops
like coal-coloured bunting…
—Nalini Paul, “August”
published in The Flight of the Turtle: New Writing Scotland 29 (ASL, 2011)
Brutalised Africans made Glasgow
amazing disgrace, how sweet the civic amnesia…
mansions without plaques
unrevised street names
no memorial.
—Kate Tough, “People Made Glasgow”
“A contemporary sickness has its roots in unredressed wrongs”
Today, 23 August, is the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade & its Abolition
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/people-made-glasgow/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #slavery #abolition #SlaveryHistory #RememberSlavery
Women Have Always Written SFF — But It Wasn’t Always Easy to Find
In the 1970s, many of the best new authors were women — do you remember how you first found their work?
By James Davis Nicoll
Science fiction at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/36
Read the Dramatic 17th-Century Memoirs of Alice Thornton, Who Wrote Four Versions of Her Life Story
Researchers have digitized all four volumes, which are now available online. The autobiographies offer a compelling window into a tumultuous period in English history
By Sonja Anderson
The autobiography of Mrs. Alice Thornton is available at @internetarchive
https://ia801308.us.archive.org/9/items/autobiographyofm00thorrich/autobiographyofm00thorrich.pdf
