Eggplant.place

220d

As by barren trackway
on a mountain crest
with view of scree and corrie,
ridge and col,
a traveller might pause…

—“A cairn”, by Gael Turnbull (1928–2004) – born #OTD, 7 April
from WHILE BREATH PERSIST (The Porcupine’s Quill, 1992)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

A Cairn
by Gael Turnbull

As by barren trackway
on a mountain crest
with view of scree and corrie,
ridge and col,
a traveller might pause,
take bearings, cast
in tribute to record:
“A man came here, went on,
left common token, shared
with those who went before
and shall come after.”

ALT

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220d

It’s hard to think that the earth is one –
This poor sad bearer of wars and disasters
Rolls-Roycing round the sun with its load of gangsters,
Attended only by the loveless moon.

—Norman MacCaig, “Stars and Planets”
published in The Poems of Norman MacCaig (Birlinn, 2009)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Stars and Planets
by Norman MacCaig

Trees are cages for them: water holds its breath
To balance them without smudging on its delicate meniscus.
Children watch them playing in their heavenly playground;
Men use them to lug ships across oceans, through firths.

They seem so twinkle-still, but they never cease
Inventing new spaces and huge explosions
And migrating in mathematical tribes over
The steppes of space at their outrageous ease.

It’s hard to think that the earth is one –
This poor sad bearer of wars and disasters
Rolls-Roycing round the sun with its load of gangsters,
Attended only by the loveless moon.

ALT

Edited 220d ago

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220d

Nothing But the Poem – Robin Robertson

Winner of all three Forward Prizes for poetry, Robin Robertson also holds the distinction of writing the only poem ever nominated for the Booker Prize: his epic 2018 work The Long Take.

In this new episode of the Scottish Poetry Library podcast, Samuel Tongue explores two vintage Robin Robertson poems: ‘Cat, Failing’ & ‘Swimming in the Woods’.

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/podcast/nothing-but-the-poem-robin-robertson/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #podcast

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219d

Chì mi rè geàrd na h-oidhche
dreòs air chrith ’na fhroidhneas thall air fàire,
a’ clapail le a sgiathaibh,
a’ sgapadh ’s a’ ciaradh rionnagan na h-àird’ ud…

—Deòrsa Mac Iain Deòrsa (George Campbell Hay), “Bisearta”. Hay witnessed the Allied bombing of Bizerte in 1943

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #warpoetry #ww2

Deorsa Mac lain Deòrsa (George Campbell Hay)
Bisearta

Chì mi rè geard na h-oidhche
dreòs air chrith ’na fhroidhneas thall air fàire,
a’ clapail le a sgiathaibh,
a’sgapadh ’s a’ ciaradh rionnagan na h-àird’ ud.

Shaoileadh tu gun cluinnte,
ge cian, o ’bhuillsgein ochanaich no caoineadh,
ràn corraich no gàir fuatha,
comhart chon cuthaich uaith no ulfhairt fhaolchon,
gun ruigeadh drannd an fhòirneirt
on fhùirneis òmair iomall fhèin an t-saoghail.
Ach siud a’ dol an leud e
ri oir an speur an tostachd olc is aognaidh.

C’ainm nochd a th’ orra,
na sràidean bochda anns an sgeith gach uinneag
a lasraichean ’s a deatach,
a sradagan is sgreadail a luchd thuinidh,
is taigh air thaigh ga reubadh
am broinn a chèile am brùchdadh toit’ a’ tuiteam?
Is cò a-nochd tha ’g atach
am Bàs a theachd gu grad ’nan cainntibh uile,
no a’ spàirn measg chlach is shailthean
air bhàinidh a’ gairm air cobhair, is nach cluinnear?
Cò a-nochd a phàigheas
seann chìs àbhaisteach na fala cumant?

Uair dearg mar lod na h-àraich,
uair bàn mar ghile thràighte an eagail èitigh,
a’ dìreadh ’a uair a’ teàrnadh,
a’ sìneadh le sitheadh àrd ’s a’ call a mheudachd,
a’ fannachadh car aitil
’s ag at mar anail dhiabhail air dhèinead,
an t-Olc ’na chridhe ’s ’na chuisle,
chì mi ’na bhuillean a’ sìoladh ’s a’ leum e.
Tha ’n dreòs ’na oillt air fàire,
’na fhàinne ròis is òir am bun nan speuran,
a’ breugnachadh ’s ag àicheadh
le ’shoillse sèimhe àrsaidh àrd nan reultan.

ALT

Bizerta
translated by George Campbell Hay

I see during the night guard
a blaze flickering, fringing the skyline over yonder,
beating with its wings
and scattering and dimming the stars of that airt.

You would think that there would be heard
from its midst, though far away, wailing and lamentation,
the roar of rage and the yell of hate,
the barking of frenzied dogs from it or the howling of wolves,
that the snarl of violence would reach
from yon amber furnace the very edge of the world;
but yonder it spreads
along the rim of the sky in evil ghastly silence.

What is their name tonight,
the poor streets where every window spews
its flame and smoke,
its sparks and the screaming of its inmates,
while house upon house is rent
and collapses in a gust of smoke?
And who tonight are beseeching
Death to come quickly in all their tongues,
or are struggling among stones and beams,
crying in frenzy for help, and are not heard?
Who tonight is paying
the old accustomed tax of common blood?

Now red like a battlefield puddle,
now pale like the drained whiteness of foul fear,
climbing and sinking,
reaching and darting up and shrinking in size,
growing faint for a moment
and swelling like the breath of a devil in intensity,
I see Evil as a pulse and a heart
declining and leaping in throbs.
The blaze, a horror on the skyline,
a ring of rose and gold at the foot of the sky,
belies and denies
with its light the ancient high tranquillity of the stars.

ALT

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199d

Glasgow, 1979. Twelve-year-old Janey won’t take her dog, Sid Vicious, for a walk. Not any more. It’s Sid’s fault she found the murdered woman…

The Scots Whay Hae! podcast speaks to Frances Crawford about her debut novel A BAD, BAD PLACE (Bantam, 2026)

@bookstodon

https://www.scotswhayhae.com/post/crime-of-the-times-the-scots-whay-hae-podcast-talks-to-frances-crawford

#Scottish #literature #novel #CrimeFiction #Glasgow #Punk #PunkRock

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219d

Living without my self

Our culture valorises the big, coherent self: reading Robert Musil helps me embrace the beauty of my no-self existence

by Mette Leonard Høeg

https://aeon.co/essays/robert-musil-gives-confidence-to-the-no-self-minority-like-me?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a074b02ade-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_04_07&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-4ef8a26106-72664972

Musil at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/37187

#books #literature

Robert Musil in 1900

Unknown author - Scan du livre .Musil, Journaux

Musil faces the camera directly with a composed, self-possessed expression. He has short, neatly parted dark hair, a trim moustache, and wears a dark jacket with a white collar and bow tie.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Robert_Musil#/media/File:Robert_Musil_1900.jpg

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219d

“The ballad’s enduring appeal (and Romantasy’s, too) is that it flips the traditional narrative of heroism on its head”

In the early Scottish ballad “Tam Lin”, the titular man is rescued from the fairies by the bravery of Janet, the heroine

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/romantasy-history-acotar-celtic-folklore

#Scottish #literature #folklore #ballad #romantasy #TamLin #16thcentury

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219d

The boy is ten and today it is his birthday.
Behind him on the lawn
his mother and his little sister
unfurl a rainbow crayoned big and bright
on a roll of old wallpaper…

—Liz Lochhead, “The Spaces Between” – Glasgow, April 2020
published in A HANDSEL (Birlinn, 2023)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/a-handsel/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #covid #lockdown

The Spaces Between
Liz Lochhead

(for Leslie McGuire)

The boy is ten and today it is his birthday.
Behind him on the lawn
his mother and his little sister
unfurl a rainbow crayoned big and bright
on a roll of old wallpaper.
His father, big-eyed, mock-solemn, pantomimes ceremony
as he lights the ten candles on the cake.
Inside her living-room
his grandmother puts her open palm to the window.
Out in the garden, her grandson
reaches up, mirrors her, stretching fingers
and they smile and smile as if they touched
warm flesh not cold glass.

More than forty thousand years ago
men or women splayed their fingers thus
and put their hands to bare rock, they
chewed ochre, red-ochre, gritted charcoal and blew,
blew with projectile effort that really took it out of them,
their living breath.
Raw gouts of pigment
spattered the living stencil
that was each’s own living hand
and made their mark.
The space of absence
was the clean, stark picture of their presence
and it pleased them.
We do not know why they did it
and maybe they did not either but
they knew they must.
It was the cold cave wall
and they knew they were up against it.

ALT

The birthday boy is juggling.
He has been spending time in the lockdown learning
but though he still can’t keep it up for long
his grandmother dumb-shows most extravagant applause.
She toasts them all in tea
from her Best Granny in the World mug, winking
and licking her lips ecstatically as,
outdoors, they cut the cake,
miming hunger, miming
prayer for her hunger to be sated.
The slim girl dances
and her grandmother claps
and claps again, blinking tears.
Another matched high-five at her window.

Neither the blown candles or the blown kisses
will leave any permanent mark
– unless love does? –
on them on this the only afternoon
they will be all alive together on just this day the boy is ten.

ALT

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218d

Shakespeare Gardens Around the World Honor the Playwright—and Hold Their Own Storied History

The curated plots of flowers, herbs and trees serve as windows into Shakespeare’s work and life

by Mary Randolph

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/shakespeare-gardens-around-the-world-honor-the-playwright-and-hold-their-own-storied-history-180988497/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&lctg=93133550

Flowers from Shakespeare's Garden at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64102

#books #literature

Illustration from Walter Crane's 1906 book, Flowers from Shakespeare's Garden.

A young woman in a pink Regency-style dress and wide-brimmed floral hat kneels in a garden, gathering an armful of vividly coloured flowers — daisies, poppies, irises, marigolds and more — before a marble bust of Shakespeare on a pedestal, set against dark topiary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shakespeare_garden.jpg

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129d

Among All the Great Things Benjamin Franklin Invented or Discovered, His Alter Egos Gave Him the Most Freedom

Silence Dogood. Richard Saunders. Benevolus. Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim. All were pen names that allowed Franklin to say things he couldn’t have otherwise said

by H.W. Brands

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/among-all-great-things-benjamin-franklin-invented-discovered-alter-egos-gave-him-most-freedom-180988824/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&lctg=93133550&user_id=19f2988141aeef1ce3da2871b25613801e24297faaf654001575521d8c39910f

Books by Benjamin Franklin (including his Autobiography) at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/92

#books #literature #history

"He was therefore, feasted and invited to all the court parties. At these he sometimes met the old Duchess of Bourbon, who, being a chess player of about his force, they very generally played together. Happening once to put her king into prize, the Doctor took it. 'Ah,' says she, 'we do not take kings so.' 'We do in America,' said the Doctor."—Thomas Jefferson

A colorful period illustration depicting an elegant 18th-century court gathering in a grand chandelier-lit salon, with elaborately dressed figures in powdered wigs and embroidered gowns surrounding a simply dressed man seated at a chess board.

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218d

This is the animal that never was.
Not knowing that, they loved it anyway:
its bearing, its stride, its high, clear whinny—
right down to the still light of its gaze…

—Don Paterson, “Unicorn”
after Rilke’s “Die Sonette an Orpheus”
published in POETRY, June 2004

Today, 9 April, is National Unicorn Day! 🦄

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=184&issue=3&page=73

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #NationalUnicornDay #unicorn #Rilke

Unicorn
by Don Paterson
after Rilke’s “Die Sonette an Orpheus”

This is the animal that never was.
Not knowing that, they loved it anyway:
its bearing, its stride, its high, clear whinny-
right down to the still light of its gaze.

It never was. And yet such was their love
the pure beast arose; they had cleared the space.
And in the stable of its nothingness
it shook its white mane out and stamped its hoof.

They fed it, then, not with hay or corn,
but with the chance that it might come to pass.
All this gave the creature such a power

its brow put out a horn; one single horn.
It grew inside a maiden’s looking-glass
then one day walked out, and passed into her.

ALT

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218d

“What the hell do the love letters of that old fraud H.P. Lovecraft have to do with the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs?”

A slight departure for National Unicorn Day – the Hugo Award-winning novella “Equoid” by Charles Stross @cstross
🦄 🐙

@bookstodon

https://reactormag.com/equoid/

#Scottish #literature #unicorn #NationalUnicornDay #sciencefiction #scifi #lovecraft #horror #squamous #rugose #batrachian

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218d

#OTD In 1859, Samuel Langhorne Clemens receives his steamboat pilot’s license.

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-april-9-2026/

Books by Mark Twain at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/53

#books #literature

Young Mark Twain. He is turned to his left. He moustache and hair appear brown.

ALT

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218d

‘When the knife came up through the pool table, audiences gasped’

Within six months of its launch in 2006, the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) produced a globe-conquering hit. Inspired by tragic events at Camp Dogwood in Iraq, Black Watch was a humane portrayal of young squaddies on the frontline.

In this article, the makers of the devastating drama recall how it grew and grew.

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/apr/08/iraq-war-black-watch-national-theatre-of-scotland-fife-pub

#Scottish #literature #drama #theatre #theater #Iraq #IraqWar #BlackWatch

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198d

Why Does Music in Science Fiction Sound Like That?

Imagining the sound of other worlds has a long past—and persistent creative limits.

By: Angelica Frey

https://daily.jstor.org/why-does-music-in-science-fiction-sound-like-that/

Full article available for download:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27106975?mag=why-does-music-in-science-fiction-sound-like-that&seq=4

Music & Science Fiction at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/50
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/68

#Books #Literature #Music

Title page of New Atlantis in the second edition of Francis Bacon's Sylva sylvarvm: or A naturall historie. In ten centvries. London. Printed by J.H. for William Lee at the Turkes Head in Fleet-street, next to the Miter, 1628.

Published after the authors death, by William Rawley Doctor of Divinity, late his Lordships Chaplaine.

1628 title page of New Atlantis, an unfinished utopian work by Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban. Features period typography and a small decorative woodcut engraving at the bottom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atlantis#/media/File:Bacon_1628_New_Atlantis_title_page_wpreview.png

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198d

When the long, varnished buds of beech
Point out beyond their reach,
And tanned by summer suns
Leaves of black bryony turn bronze…

—Andrew Young, “The Beech-Wood”

Andrew Young (1885–1971) – described by C.S. Lewis as “A modern Marvell & a modern marvel” – was born #OTD, 29 April

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#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

The Beech-Wood
Andrew Young

When the long, varnished buds of beech
Point out beyond their reach,
And tanned by summer suns
Leaves of black bryony turn bronze,
And gossamer floats bright and wet
From trees that are their own sunset,
Spring, summer, autumn I come here,
And what is there to fear?
And yet I never lose the feeling
That someone close behind is stealing
Or else in front has disappeared;
Though nothing I have seen or heard,
The fear of what I might have met
Makes me still walk beneath these boughs
With cautious steps as in a haunted house.

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195d

The Moral Beauty of Middlemarch

George Eliot’s masterpiece teaches us to live faithfully a hidden life.

By George Scialabba

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/life/beauty/the-moral-beauty-of-middlemarch

Middlemarch at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/145

#Books #Literature

Dorothea Brooke and Will Ladislaw from Middlemarch by George Eliot.

A composed woman in red sits beside an earnest young man who leans toward her. Warm, intimate interior with latticed windows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlemarch#/media/File:Dorothea_and_Will_Ladislaw.jpg

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216d

How Amazing Stories Served as the Blueprint for American Science Fiction

Ed Simon Goes Back to When the Past was the Future

https://lithub.com/how-amazing-stories-served-as-the-blueprint-for-american-science-fiction/

Amazing stories at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=amazing+stories

#books #literature #pulpfiction

Cover image: Trajectory to Taurus

Author: Les Cole

Illustrator: Virgil Finlay

This image is a vintage pulp magazine cover with a bold, eye-catching science fiction theme.

At the top, the large title reads Amazing Science Fiction Stories, with a smaller headline above it saying “When the Moon Was Red.” The issue is dated September, and the price (35¢) is shown on the left.

Central illustration: the Moon is depicted as a large, greenish, human-like face with exaggerated features—bulging eyes, deep wrinkles, and a mischievous or menacing expression. A small rocket is flying toward the Moon, and it looks as if the Moon is smoking it like a cigar, with a trail of smoke extending outward.

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/72539/pg72539-images.html

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216d

#OTD in 1935 Anna Katharine Green died. "She was one of the first authors of detective fiction in the United States and distinguished herself by writing well plotted, legally accurate stories."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Katharine_Green

Books by Green at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/541

#books #literature

Photograph of Anna Katharine Green. She is turned to her right, but her face is towards the camera. Her coat is fur-lined.

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196d

This month's Distributed Proofreaders (DP) blog is about "Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Travels." This was a book by Wolfgang von Goethe which was translated into English by Thomas Carlyle.

https://blog.pgdp.net/2026/05/01/wilhelm-meisters-apprenticeship-and-travels/

#dp #dpblog #books #literature

Portrait of Goethe in 1828 by Joseph Carl Stieler. He is an older man with gray hair. He is sitting at a desk and holding a paper/manuscript in his right hand. He is wearing a black coat and a white cravat with a red pin holding it together.

ALT

Edited 196d ago

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215d

The Suda, The Greek Encyclopedia Written in the Year 1100

By Patricia Claus

https://greekreporter.com/2026/04/10/suda-byzantine-encyclopedia-written-1100/

Greek literature at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=greek+literature

#books #literature #encyclopedia

Page from Vaticanus graecus 1296

Suda in ms. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vaticanus graecus 1296, fol. 193r.

The text is written in dark ink using a flowing, cursive script as an early Greek handwriting. The lines are tightly spaced and somewhat uneven, with many ligatures and abbreviations typical of historical manuscripts. There are no illustrations—just dense blocks of text on both pages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suda#/media/File:Suda,_Vaticanus_graecus_1296.jpg

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215d

Artemis II moonshot reflects a spacefaring vision present in Jules Verne’s 19th‑century novel

by Anastasia Klimchynskaya

https://theconversation.com/artemis-ii-moonshot-reflects-a-spacefaring-vision-present-in-jules-vernes-19th-century-novel-280252

From the Earth to the moon at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/83

#books #literature #sciencefiction

From the Earth to the Moon engraving from the 1872 illustrated edition.

A blinding column of light and fire erupts vertically from the ground, billowing clouds of smoke expanding outward in great turbulent masses. High above, the bullet-shaped projectile capsule is just visible as a tiny dark speck ascending into the sky. The landscape below is dark and flat, showing that most of the people seem to be running or crawling away from the muzzle flash.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon#/media/File:From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_(151481126).jpg

ALT

Edited 215d ago

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215d

Laid-back in orbit, they found their minds.
They found their minds were very clean and clear…

—Edwin Morgan, “A Home in Space”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

Yuri Gagarin completed a single orbit of the Earth #OTD, 12 April, 1961. Today is the International Day of Human Space Flight

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #space #spaceflight #InternationalDayOfHumanSpaceFlight #Gagarin

A Home in Space
Edwin Morgan

Laid-back in orbit, they found their minds.
They found their minds were very clean and clear.
Clear crystals in swarms outside were their fireflies and larks.
Larks they were in lift-off, swallows in soaring.
Soaring metal is flight and nest together.
Together they must hatch.
Hatches let the welders out.
Out went the whitesuit riggers with frames as light as air.
Air was millions under lock and key.
Key-ins had computers wild on Saturday nights.
Nights, days, months, years they lived in space.
Space shone black in their eyes.
Eyes, hands, food-tubes, screens, lenses, keys were one.
One night – or day – or month – or year – they all –
all gathered at the panel and agreed –
agreed to cut communication with –
with the earth base – and it must be said they were –
were cool and clear as they dismantled the station and –
and gave their capsule such power that –
that they launched themselves outwards –
outwards in an impeccable trajectory, that band –
that band of tranquil defiers, not to plant any –
any home with roots but to keep a –
a voyaging generation voyaging, and as far –
as far as there would ever be a home in space –
space that needs time and time that needs life.

ALT

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215d

The Contested Cottage: Scottish Literature, Irish Partition & the Cottage Nation
22 April, University of Edinburgh & online – free

An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar: Dr Sarah Sharp examines “kailyard” literature in Scotland & Ulster in the long 19th century

@litstudies

https://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/event/dr-sarah-sharp-contested-cottage-scottish-literature-irish-partition-and-cottage-nation

#Scottish #Irish #literature #Ulster #kailyard #19thcentury #Victorian

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218d

It turns out, if you want people to buy books you have translated, you have to tell people that you have translated books.

I translated the complete four-volume set of Mogador's memoirs, telling the story of her life as a courtesan in 19th c. Paris. They're all available wherever you buy books, even indie bookstores.

#books #literature #translation

https://mogadormemoirs.com/

Edited 218d ago

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