Eggplant.place

1y

Currently on BBC Sounds: Ian McMillan hosts poets Liz Lochhead, Robert Crawford & Hannah Lavery at the Edinburgh Festival

Hannah Lavery performs “Edinburgh is a Story”; “My Work is Loving the World”; & “Miss Has Started Using Sunbeds”

Robert Crawford reads “Camera Obscura” & “Mons Meg”

Liz Lochhead reads a selection of poems including “Trouble Is Not My Middle Name”; “Coming To Poetry”; & “Song For A Dirty Diva”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002htf2

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Edinburgh

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1y

On leaving
you playfully punched
my left
shoulder.

The sensation
remains

But your
voice fades

The sensation
remains
But your
image fades

I
short of breath
tremble

I think
you’ve
cracked
a
rib.

—“Gone but Not Forgotten”, by Maud Sulter (1960–2008)
born #OTD, 19 Sep – a 🎂 🧵

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#Scottish #literature #poem #poet #poetry #photography #MaudSulter #BPOC #Blackwriters #womenwriters #Scotland #Ghana

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1y

“Newton had a way of making everyone in the movie react to him like astonished children, agog at the snarling, bug-eyed, peg-legged creature in their midst”

Today, 19 September, is #TalkLikeAPirateDay – but really it’s #TalkLikeRobertNewtonPlayingLongJohnSilverDay 🏴‍☠️🦜

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/film-version-treasure-island-gave-us-our-image-pirates-180967149/

#Scottish #literature #kidlit #ChildrensLiterature #TreasureIsland #RobertLouisStevenson #film #movies #classicmovies #pirates

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1y

So I stopped my walk, climbed the gate
to help an old farmer cursing his deaf god
bringing in the last of a poor harvest…

—Jim Carruth, “Only Human”
published in A Little Touch of Cliff in the Evening: New Writing Scotland 30 (ASL, 2012)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #farming #harvest

Jim Carruth
Only Human

So I stopped my walk, climbed the gate
to help an old farmer cursing his deaf god
bringing in the last of a poor harvest.
He must have been struggling all day
on his own to fill that small trailer.

I cannot make more of this than it was.
I was no passing Samaritan, saving him
minutes at most, nor a reluctant volunteer
some Simon of Cyrene shouldering
the burden of a stranger’s sodden bale.

As for him, this ageing hunch-backed man
he could not raise his head to say thanks
nor straighten his spine to walk like a saint
not even resurrect the past fortnight of rain
into one unblemished day of a risen sun.

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1y

“If there is sich a thing as a Author, I’m his favourite chara’ter. He does me fathoms better’n he does you—fathoms, he does. And he likes doing me. He keeps me on deck mostly all the time, crutch and all”

—Long John Silver & Captain Smollett argue fiction & morality between chapters, in Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Persons of the Tale” – download a free ebook here:

@bookstodon

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/fables/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #FlashFiction

Book cover

Robert Louis Stevenson
FABLES

Against a background of handwritten text, sloping away into the distance, two ink-black silhouettes of eighteenth-century seamen – one with a crutch and only one leg – address each other. A few blobs of ink surround them. The one-legged man gesticulates towards the other, holding a smoking pipe in his hand.

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1y

Robert Louis Stevenson at 175
18 Sept, free online

Why do we continue to memorialise & study the life & works of a chronically ill bohemian author from Victorian Edinburgh, 130 years after his death? UHI Institute for Northern Studies PhD candidate James Simon investigates

https://www.uhi.ac.uk/en/research-enterprise/cultural/institute-for-northern-studies/events/public-seminar-series-robert-louis-stevenson-at-175.html

#Scottish #literature #RobertLouisStevenson #Victorian #19thcentury

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1y

Five cutting-edge Scottish sci-fi writers you need to read next

“Scotland has a long and proud tradition of science fiction writing – due, perhaps, to the country’s proficiency in both penmanship and scientific endeavour”

Barry Didcock looks at Martin McInnes, Ever Dundas, Anne Charnock, Rachelle Atalla, & TL Huchu

https://www.heraldscotland.com/life_style/25450575.five-cutting-edge-scottish-sci-fi-writers-need-read-next/

#Scottish #literature #sciencefiction #scifi

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1y

Seven scythes leaned at the wall.
Beard upon golden beard
The last barley load
Swayed through the yard…

—George Mackay Brown, “Taxman”
Published in CARVE THE RUNES (Polygon, 2021)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/carve-the-runes/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Orkney #GeorgeMackayBrown #rurallife #harvest

Taxman
by George Mackay Brown

Seven scythes leaned at the wall.
Beard upon golden beard
The last barley load
Swayed through the yard.
The girls uncorked the ale.
Fiddle and feet moved together.
Then between stubble and heather
A horseman rode.

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225d

This month the Distributed Proofreaders (DP) blog is a book about the US pre-Civil War abolitionist, "The Life of John Brown."

https://blog.pgdp.net/2026/04/01/life-of-john-brown/

#dp #dpblog #books #literature

John Brown in 1859. He is turned to the side with his face turned towards the camera. He has his right hand in his pocket.

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1y

Scottish International Storytelling Festival: Lights of the North

22 October–1 November

The 2025 Scottish International Storytelling Festival explores Scotland’s northern identity – sharing tales, songs and myths from the world’s northern arc, which bridges Finland to Iceland and connects Germany to Norway, with Scotland in between.

Tickets on sale now.

https://www.sisf.org.uk

#Scottish #literature #storytelling #identity #folktale #song #myth

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258d

Creative Conversations: Nicky Melville
2 March, University of Glasgow & online – free

Poet, creative writing teacher, musician & occasional artist nicky (nick-e) melville reading & in conversation. He has been developing a variety of forms and genres: found poetry and erasures, visual poetry, lyric experiment, conceptual & post-conceptual writing, & a badge. His work interrogates the imperatives of capitalism, politics & ideology.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-conversations-nicky-melville-tickets-1977612662710

#Scottish #literature #poetry

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1y

#OTD in 1894 poet and essayist e. e. cummings was born.

"Cummings wrote approximately 2,900 poems. He is often regarded as one of the most important American poets of the 20th century. He is associated with modernist free-form poetry, and much of his work uses idiosyncratic syntax and lower-case spellings for poetic expression."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings

Books by cummings at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2755

#poetry #literature

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1y

“People who were taken to ancient places as children often have fuzzy old photos of themselves at the sites. Such pictures increase in power as the years go by. The people who took us pass away, and we ourselves grow up and change, but the stones stay the same.”

Peter Ross goes in search of a standing stone.

Peter Ross’s Upon a White Horse: Journeys in Ancient Britain & Ireland is published by Headline

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/sep/11/standing-stone-childhood-photo-scottish-island-islay

#Scottish #literature #standingstones #megaliths #prehistory

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1y

Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) was born #OTD, 11 September. Plays on the Passions, a series of female-led comedies & tragedies, brought Baillie fame during a period when serious drama was in decline. Her 256th birthday was commemorated by a Google doodle in 2018

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https://doodles.google/doodle/joanna-baillies-256th-birthday/

#Scottish #literature #drama #theatre #WomenWriters #JoannaBaillie #18thcentury #19thcentury

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1y

Inside the Rooms Where 20 Famous Books Were Written

From The House of Mirth to Go Tell It on the Mountain

By Emily Temple (from the archives)

https://lithub.com/inside-the-rooms-where-20-famous-books-were-written/?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&utm_id=01K4SYGVEQ7NXKDYCBYWQE28YS&_kx=3MZUehzXM-41qlWAMPUiuNZadX2p0SByuNf_t0eMLB0.U5D8ER

#books #literature

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1y

At times I think what makes us who we are
is neither kinship nor our given states
but something lost between the world we own
and what we dream about behind the names
on days like this

—John Burnside, “History”
Published in SELECTED POEMS (Jonathan Cape, 2006)

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/389400/selected-poems-by-burnside-john/9780224078030

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #September11 #history #JohnBurnside

John Burnside
HISTORY

St Andrews: West Sands; September 2001

Today
as we flew the kites
– the sand spinning off in ribbons along the beach
and that gasoline smell from Leuchars gusting across
the golf links;
the tide far out
and quail-grey in the distance;
people
jogging, or stopping to watch
as the war planes cambered and turned
in the morning light –

today
– with the news in my mind, and the muffled dread
of what may come –

I knelt down in the sand
with Lucas
gathering shells
and pebbles
finding evidence of life in all this
driftwork:
snail shells; shreds of razorfish;
smudges of weed and flesh on tideworn stone.

At times I think what makes us who we are
is neither kinship nor our given states
but something lost between the world we own
and what we dream about behind the names
on days like this

ALT

our lines raised in the wind
our bodies fixed and anchored to the shore

and though we are confined by property
what tethers us to gravity and light
has most to do with distance and the shapes
we find in water
reading from the book
of silt and tides
the rose or petrol blue
of jellyfish and sea anemone
combining with a child’s
first nakedness.

Sometimes I am dizzy with the fear
of losing everything – the sea, the sky,
all living creatures, forests, estuaries:
we trade so much to know the virtual
we scarcely register the drift and tug
of other bodies
scarcely apprehend
the moment as it happens: shifts of light
and weather
and the quiet, local forms
of history: the fish lodged in the tide
beyond the sands;
the long insomnia
of ornamental carp in public parks
captive and bright
and hung in their own
slow-burning
transitive gold;
jamjars of spawn
and sticklebacks
or goldfish carried home

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from fairgrounds
to the hum of radio

but this is the problem: how to be alive
in all this gazed-upon and cherished world
and do no harm

a toddler on a beach
sifting wood and dried weed from the sand
and puzzled by the pattern on a shell

his parents on the dune slacks with a kite
plugged into the sky
all nerve and line

patient; afraid; but still, through everything
attentive to the irredeemable.

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1y

“Stephen,” said Sir John, still in the same soft, sleekit tone of voice—“Stephen Stevenson, or Steenson, ye are down here for a year’s rent behind the hand—due at last term.”

—from “Wandering Willie’s Tale”, by Walter Scott: just what lengths do you have to go to to convince a landlord that you’ve paid the rent?

#Scottish #literature #SirWalterScott #19thcentury #ShortStories #Scots #Scotslanguage #Scotstober

‘Stephen,’ said Sir John, still in the same soft, sleekit tone of voice—‘Stephen Stevenson, or Steenson, ye are down here for a year’s rent behind the hand—due at last term.’

Stephen. ‘Please your honour, Sir John, I paid it to your father.’

Sir John. ‘Ye took a receipt, then, doubtless, Stephen; and can produce it?’

Stephen. ‘Indeed I hadna time, an it like your honour; for nae sooner had I set doun the siller, and just as his honour, Sir Robert, that’s gaen, drew it till him to count it, and write out the receipt, he was ta’en wi’ the pains that removed him.’

‘That was unlucky,’ said Sir John, after a pause. ‘But ye maybe paid it in the presence of somebody, I want but a talis qualis evidence, Stephen. I would go ower strictly to work with no poor man.’

Stephen. ‘Troth, Sir John, there was naebody in the room but Dougal MacCallum the butler. But, as your honour kens, he has e’en followed his auld master.’

‘Very unlucky again, Stephen,’ said Sir John, without altering his voice a single note. ‘The man to whom ye paid the money is dead—and the man who witnessed the payment is dead too—and the siller, which should have been to the fore, is neither seen nor heard tell of in the repositories. How am I to believe a’ this?’

Stephen. ‘I dinna, ken, your honour; but there is a bit memorandum note of the very coins; for, God help me! I had to borrow out of twenty purses; and I am sure that ilka man there set down will take his grit oath for what purpose I borrowed the money.’

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2y

English novelist and poet Charlotte Brontë died #OTD in 1855.

She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, which she published under the gender neutral pen name Currer Bell. Along with "Jane Eyre," her other notable works include "Shirley" (1849) and "Villette" (1853). Brontë's writing is celebrated for its exploration of social issues, particularly the role of women in Victorian society.

Books by Charlotte Brontë at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/408

#books #literature #poetry

Portrait by George Richmond (1850, chalk on paper)

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Cover page of The Search After Hapiness [sic]: A Tale by Charlotte Brontë

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1y

Robin Jenkins (1912–2005) – “the best-kept secret in modern British literature” & one of Scotland’s most prolific 20th-century novelists – was born #OTD, 11 Sep. Dr Linden Bicket argues that Jenkins anticipates the urban realist fictions of Janice Galloway, James Kelman, & Irvine Welsh

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https://asls.org.uk/robin-jenkins-a-centenary-celebration/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #RobinJenkins

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1y

“Mony a time I have askit mysel’, why witches and warlocks should sell their sauls (whilk are their maist dear possessions) and be auld, duddy, wrunkl’t wives or auld, feckless, doddered men; and then I mind upon Tod Lapraik dancing a’ the hours by his lane in the black glory of his heart.”

—Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Tale of Tod Lapraik”

@bookstodon

Download the free ebook:

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/strangetales/

#Scottish #literature #RobertLouisStevenson #Scots #Scotslanguage #Scotstober

It was joy was in the creature’s heart, the joy o’ hell, I daursay: joy whatever. Mony a time I have askit mysel’, why witches and warlocks should sell their sauls (whilk are their maist dear possessions) and be auld, duddy, wrunkl’t wives or auld, feckless, doddered men; and then I mind upon Tod Lapraik dancing a’ the hours by his lane in the black glory of his heart. Nae doubt they burn for it muckle in hell, but they have a grand time here of it, whatever!—and the Lord forgie us!

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211d

The Importance of Being Idle

What Paul Lafargue taught us about work

By Robert Zaretsky

https://theamericanscholar.org/the-importance-of-being-idle/

Lafarque at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/47147

#books #literature #ai

Photograph of Paul Lafargue. He is seated in a chair with his body facing the camera, and his head turned to his right. His right arm is resting on a table, and his left hand is at his chin.

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1y

Today, 20 September, is Batman Day. You’d think there would be a signal or something but

Anyway, here’s “Batman’s Aff His Nut”, by Robert Florence

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #comics #comicbooks #Batman #BatmanDay

Batman’s aff his nut
by Robert Florence

Have you seen the way he cuts aboot
Dressed up as a mad fuckin bat
Batterin guys
I was lit at:
“Mate, I’m worried aboot ye
I know your ma and da died
But everybody’s ma and da dies
And we’re no aw runnin aboot
Hookin muggers and
Kickin psychopaths in the baws.”
And that was when Batman went
“Aye, but do ye ever feel like it?
Do you ever look at the world and feel like it?
Like having a big mad base under your hoose?
Do you ever feel like drivin a big mad motor
that turns intae a tank?
And leatherin fuck oot of guys aw night?
Scarin the fuckin shite oot of them?”
And that’s when I was lit at:
“Aye. Fuck it. Ah dae.”
And that’s the Secret Origin of Robin
And everyone else.

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Blurry photo of a man in a (partial?) Batman costume, on a wet Glasgow street – probably taken during the filming of the 2022 movie THE BATMAN, where Glasgow was a stand-in for Gotham City.

Text: She’s turned the Waynes against us…

She’s turned the Waynes against us

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2y

"Every sensitive person carries in himself old cities enclosed by ancient walls."

Swiss writer Robert Walser was born #OTD in 1878.

One of Walser's most notable works is his collection of short prose pieces titled "Der Spaziergang" (1917). Walser's writing fell out of favor after his death in 1956, but experienced a revival in the late 20th century, thanks in part to the efforts of literary scholars and translators.

Books by Robert Walser at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/26294

#books #literature

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Cover of Der Spaziergang by Robert Walser

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1y

Call it not vain:—they do not err,
Who say, that when the Poet dies,
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies…

—from Canto V, “The Lay of the Last Minstrel” by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) – died #OTD, 21 September

https://www.theotherpages.org/poems/canto05.html

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WalterScott #19thcentury #romanticism

Sir Walter Scott
The Lay of the Last Minstrel
Canto V

I.
Call it not vain;—they do not err,
Who say, that when the Poet dies,
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies:
Who say, tall cliff and cavern lone
For the departed Bard make moan;
That mountains weep in crystal rill;
That flowers in tears of balm distill;
Through his lov'd groves that breezes sigh,
And oaks, in deeper groan, reply;
And rivers teach their rushing wave
To murmur dirges round his grave

II.
Not that, in sooth, o'er mortal urn
Those things inanimate can mourn;
But that the stream, the wood, the gale
Is vocal with the plaintive wail
Of those, who, else forgotten long,
Liv'd in the poet's faithful song,
And with the poet's parting breath,
Whose memory feels a second death.
The Maid's pale shade, who wails her lot,
That love, true love, should be forgot,
From rose and hawthorn shakes the tear
Upon the gentle Minstrel's bier:
The phantom Knight, his glory fled,
Mourns o'er the field he heap'd with dead;
Mounts the wild blast that sweeps amain,
And shrieks along the battle-plain.
The Chief, whose antique crownlet long
Still sparkled in the feudal song,
Now, from the mountain's misty throne,
Sees, in the thanedom once his own,
His ashes undistinguish'd lie,
His place, his power, his memory die:
His groans the lonely caverns fill,
His tears of rage impel the rill:
All mourn the Minstrel's harp unstrung,
Their name unknown, their praise unsung.

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1y

“The goal with this type of literature is that spark of recognition”

The Skinny Magazine speaks with Glasgow author Selali Fiamanya, whose debut novel BEFORE WE HIT THE GROUND is a tender & wrenching account of immigrant family dynamics

@bookstodon

https://www.theskinny.co.uk/books/features/selali-fiamanya-on-his-debut-novel-before-we-hit-the-ground

#Scottish #literature #Glasgow #immigrants #immigration

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