Eggplant.place

173d

The thing about poetry is you have to keep doing it.
People have to keep making it.
The old stuff is no use
Once it’s old…

—Margaret, Tait, “Now”
from Poems, Stories and Writings (Carcanet, 2023)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800173798/poems-stories-and-writings/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

Now
by Margaret Tait

I used to lie in wait to see the clover open
Or close,
But never saw it.
I was too impatient,
Or the movement is too subtle,
Imperceptible
And more than momentary.
My five-year-old self would tire of waiting
And when I looked again
– All closed for the night!
I missed it
Once more.

Cinematographically
I have registered the opening of escholtzia
On an early summer morning.
It gave me a sharp awareness of time passing,
Of exact qualities and values in the light,
But I didn’t see the movement
As movement.
I didn’t with my own direct perception see the petals
moving.
Later, on the film, they seemed to open swiftly,
But, at the time,
Although I stared
And felt time not so much moving as being moved in
And felt
A unity of time and place with other times and places
Yet
I didn’t see the petals moving.

ALT

I didn’t see them opening.
They were closed,
And later they were open,
And in between I noted many phases,
But I didn’t see them moving open.
My timing and my rhythm could not observe the
rhythm of their opening.

The thing about poetry is you have to keep doing it.
People have to keep making it.
The old stuff is no use
Once it’s old.
It comes out of the instant
And lasts for an instant.
Take it now
Quickly
Without water.

There!

Tomorrow they’ll be something else.

ALT

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173d

heh Casey did a tell ye a goat
a couple a poems published
widizthatmean
widayyemean
dizthatmeanyegetmoneyfurrit…

—William Letford, “It’s aboot the labour”
published in BEVEL (Carcanet, 2012)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781847771926

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

It’s aboot the labour
by William Letford

hammers nails
hammers nails
hammers nails

heh Casey did a tell ye a goat
a couple a poems published
widizthatmean
widayyemean
dizthatmeanyegetmoneyfurrit

eh naw
aw right

hammers nails
hammers nails
hammers nails

ALT

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173d

I found him wandering on the hill
one hot blue afternoon.
He looked as skinny as a nail,
as pale-skinned as the moon…

—Don Paterson, “The Poetry”
published in RAIN (Faber, 2009)

https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571255580-rain/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

Don Paterson
The Poetry

after Li Po

I found him wandering on the hill
one hot blue afternoon.
He looked as skinny as a nail,
as pale-skinned as the moon;

below the broad shade of his hat
his face was cut with rain.
Dear God, poor Du Fu, I thought:
It’s the poetry again.

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160d

A Latin harsh with Aramaicisms
poured from his lips incessantly; it made
no sense, for surely he was mad…

—Edwin Morgan, “Pilate at Fortingall”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

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

#Scottish #literature #Easter #poem #poetry #GoodFriday

Pilate at Fortingall
by Edwin Morgan

A Latin harsh with Aramaicisms
poured from his lips incessantly; it made
no sense, for surely he was mad. The glade
of birches shamed his rags, in paroxysms
he stumbled, toga’d, furred, blear, brittle, grey.
They told us he sat here beneath the yew
even in downpours; ate dog-scraps. Crows flew
from prehistoric stone to stone all day.
“See him now.” He crawled to the cattle-trough
at dusk, jumbled the water till it sloshed
and spilled into the hoof-mush in blue strands,
slapped with useless despair each sodden cuff,
and washed his hands, and watched his hands, and washed
his hands, and watched his hands, and washed his hands.

ALT

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140d

When the sun was white and wintry and drained of energy
Macbeth met the witches under the rim of the sky…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Macbeth and the Witches”
published in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS (Carcanet, 2021)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800170940/deer-on-the-high-hills/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Shakespeare #ShakespeareDay #Macbeth

Macbeth and the Witches
by Iain Crichton Smith

When the sun was white and wintry and drained of energy
Macbeth met the witches under the rim of the sky.
Why did you confirm my evil, he said.

And the witches who were lighting thorns in the cold winter said,
There is a play that one plays when the summer is over
and you happened to be one of the cards in our hand,

a deformed king with a coat too large for him
and a crown that sizzled in the white wintry sky.
These things are after all not important

except to those who suffer, who are not important.
Feeling belongs to the spring and the ignorance of lovers.
Here in this wood it is a question of passing the time,

and the abstract intellect constructs dramas
with a queen and a pawn and the immortal joker
who faces two ways at the frosty January gates.

Let be, let be, it was quite a nice structure.
And truth after all can be played with under the sun
which is fading slowly towards a renaissance of leaves.

Come, join us, join us, at the unimportant edge of things
wearing your coat of blood with the hole in the breast.
This is the west. The east has innocent wings.

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174d

A’ bheinn luiseanach fhailleanach
Mheallanach lìontach,
Gun choimeas dh’ a fallaing
Air thalamh na Crìosdachd…

—“Moladh Beinn Dòbhrain”, by Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir (Duncan Ban MacIntyre, 1724–1812), one of the greatest #Gaelic poets of the #C18th – born #OTD, 20 March

A 🎂 🧵

1/5

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #18thcentury

Moladh Beinn Dòbhrain (earrann)
Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir

4. Siubhal
A’ bheinn luiseanach fhailleanach
Mheallanach lìontach,
Gun choimeas dh’ a fallaing
Air thalamh na Crìosdachd:

’S ro-neònach tha mise,
Le bòidhchead a sliosa,
Nach ’eil còir aic’ an ciste
Air tiotal na rìoghachd;

’S i air dùbladh le gibhtibh,
’S air lùisreadh le miosaibh
Nach ’eil bitheant a’ bristeadh
Air phriseanaibh tìre.

Làn-trusgan gun deireas,
Le usgraichean coille,
Bàrr-guc air gach doire,
Gun choir’ ort r’ a ìnnseadh;

Far an uchdardach coileach,
Le shriutaichibh loinneil,
’S eoin bhuchallach bheag’ eile
Le ’n ceileiribh lìonmhor.

’S am buicean beag sgiolta,
Bu sgiobalt air grìne,
Gun sgiorradh gun tubaist,
Gun tuisleadh gun dìobradh;

Crodhanadh biorach,
Feadh coire ’ga shireadh,
Feadh fraoich agus firich,
Air mhireadh ’ga dhìreadh;
Feadh rainich is barraich
Gum b’arraideach inntinn;

Ann an ìosal gach feadain,
’S air àirde gach creagain,
Gu mireanach beiceasach
Easgannach sìnteach.

Edited 174d ago

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191d

Walking in a waking dream
I watched nineteen deer
pour from ridge to glen-floor,
then each in turn leap,
leap the new-raised
peat-dark burn…

—Kathleen Jamie, “The Hinds”
published in THE BONNIEST COMPANIE (Picador, 2015)

Today, 3 March, is World Wildlife Day.

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/the-bonniest-companie/9781509801718

#Scottish #literature #WorldWildlifeDay #poem #poetry #deer

The Hinds
Kathleen Jamie

Walking in a waking dream
I watched nineteen deer
pour from ridge to glen-floor,
then each in turn leap,
leap the new-raised
peat-dark burn. This
was the distaff side;
hinds at their ease, alive
to lands held on long lease
in their animal minds,
and filing through a breach
in a never-mended dyke,
the herd flowed up over
heather-slopes to scree
where they stopped, and turned to stare,
the foremost with a queenly air
as though to say: Aren’t we
the bonniest companie?
Come to me,
you’ll be happy, but never go home.

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191d

Today,
on our journey home,
we saw

a buzzard
making a kill
on the roadside verge…

—John Burnside, “Wild”
Published in THE THING THAT MATTERED MOST: Scottish poems for children, @scottishpoetrylibrary / B&W, 2006

Today, 3 March, is World Wildlife Day.

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldWildlifeDay

Wild
John Burnside

Today,
on our journey home,
we saw

a buzzard
making a kill
on the roadside verge.

It glided across
our windscreen
and hunkered down

on something –
we couldn’t see
what it was – as the wings

folded around
what Lucas called
‘the prey’.

He wanted to know
if buzzards took children,
or cats;

then,
as we slowed to look,
he chose to admire

the plumage
and the fierce light
of its eye.

ALT

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191d

Tha a’ chlosach air ragachadh
mar gun robh e a’ snàmh,
spliadh is ceann air an togail,
sùil is bian
a’ deàrrsadh mar umha…

—Meg Bateman, “Dòbhran Marbh”
Published in THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF SCOTTISH VERSE, @canongate.co.uk 2021

Today, 3 March, is World Wildlife Day

https://canongate.co.uk/books/3267-the-golden-treasury-of-scottish-verse/

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #WorldWildlifeDay #poem #poetry

Dòbhran Marbh
Meg Bateman

Tha a’ chlosach air ragachadh
mar gun robh e a’ snàmh,
spliadh is ceann air an togail,
sùil is bian
a’ deàrrsadh mar umha.

Tionndaidhidh mi air falbh,
air mo nàrachadh ro mheatair de
dhòbhran fom sgrùdadh,
is am bàs air biast cho falbhach
a ghlacadh.

Air ulbhaig, làrach fhuilteach
a chuinnlean; os a cionn,
sgeilp a’ stobadh a-mach
de riasg ’s de fhraoch
far an do thuit e

An comhair a chinn dha na creagan foidhe,
far an laigh e san dubhar mar chloich eile,
a shròn air a pronnadh, gaoisid na fhiaclan,
air a chùlaibh, a shaobhaidh, ùrail, gorm,
mun cuairt air sa bhruach, dàil-chuach is seòbhrach.

Sìnidh mo làmh gu grad thuige
’s mi a’ tuigsinn gun deach a nàdar
ceàrr air an drip an earraich,
gun rachadh an dòbhran mòrail
cuideachd air iomrall.

ALT

Dead Otter
Meg Bateman

Rigor mortis curves the beast
as if swimming,
flat head and webbed foot
raised, eyes gleaming,
pelt of bronze.

I turn away, embarrassed
by a metre of otter
laid out for my scrutiny,
by death’s exposure
of so fleet a creature.

On a boulder, the bloody
stamp of its nostrils;
above, a jutting ledge
of tangled, fibrous root
where it must have fallen

headlong to the rocks where it lies in shade
with staved in snout and stillness of stone,
white fur gripped between its teeth,
with its lair behind, lush with liverwort,
and a flicker of violets and primrose in the bank.

I reach out to it, shocked
that in the urgency of spring
instinct could fail it,
shocked that it too
could lose its footing.

ALT

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191d

Flinching in my hands
this soiled and studded but good heart,
which stippling my cupped palms, breathes –

—Jen Hadfield, “Hedgehog, Hamnavoe”
published in NIGH-NO-PLACE (Bloodaxe Books, 2007)

Today, 3 March, is World Wildlife Day.

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/hedgehog-hamnavoe/

#Scottish #literature #WorldWildlifeDay #poem #poetry #hedgehogs #Shetland

Hedgehog, Hamnavoe
Jen Hadfield

Flinching in my hands
this soiled and studded but good heart,
which stippling my cupped palms, breathes –

a kidney flinching on a hot griddle,
or very small Hell’s Angel, peeled from the verge
of a sweet, slurred morning.

Drunk, I coddle it like a crystal ball,
hellbent the realistic mysteries
should amount to more than guesswork

and fleas.

ALT

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191d

The grey roots circle thee, who never knew
At any hour within thy travels lone
A human shape but mine…

—Olive Fraser, “The Adder of Quinag”
published in THE WRONG MUSIC, @canongatebooks 1989

Today, 3 March, is World Wildlife Day.

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/adder-quinag/

#Scottish #literature #WorldWildlifeDay #poem #poetry #snake

The Adder of Quinag
Olive Fraser

The grey roots circle thee, who never knew
At any hour within thy travels lone
A human shape but mine. Thou com’st to view,
Wild, unafraid, what stands beside thy stone
And gazes on thee in thy wilderness
Of fifty miles. What thinkst thou of me,
For I am of a race thou could’st not guess
Would murder all thy hapless innocency?

O mountain, take thy small heart back again
And keep him in thy care when I shall go,
Unvisited by all things but the rain,
The hurtless sunbeams, and the winds that blow
For ever in his moors. O let him hold
No intricate memory of that being who stood
Just once by his wild beauty, and did fold
Him with a blessing alien to my blood.

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165d

I hear your 𝘣𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘣𝘪𝘳𝘥, that slow singer,
alone at my desk yet walking with you
through your valleys and hills, that shining
stream bubbling notes of your music
your pure Welsh music…

—Sheila Templeton, “For R.S. Thomas”
Published in A Little Touch of Cliff in the Evening: New Writing Scotland 30 (ASL, 2012)

The Welsh poet R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) was born #OTD, 29 March

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #RSThomas

Sheila Templeton
FOR R. S. THOMAS

I hear your bold blackbird, that slow singer,
alone at my desk yet walking with you
through your valleys and hills, that shining
stream bubbling notes of your music
your pure Welsh music. And I am walking
behind my father, born in your time, but
seeded in his own north land, ploughing,
proud to stride behind his pair o horse;
high cheek-boned, hair rain-flattened
the colour of wet barley, speaking the secret
words to his beasts, turning his park
into a sea of order, yes, with your stiff clods
glinting in the wind, gulls and peesie-weeps
skirling encouragement; above him
only a dark yearning sky.
Another enduring ordinary man,
born to till and toil, to win his wars
to wrestle with his burning under those stars.

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176d

This week; the sermon is salt
and the taste of it as song. A clean, cold burn

quickens the blood…

—A.M. Havinden, “Sea Chapel”
published in Break in Case of Silence: New Writing Scotland 39 (ASL, 2021)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

A. M. Havinden
Sea Chapel

This week; the sermon is salt
and the taste of it as song. A clean, cold burn

quickens the blood. Unseen, underfoot,
deep notes of wrack and weed wind

ankles. We raise our voices
in bright blasphemy, in shock and defiance

a hymn of human-scale endurance,
how great and small we are;

how outrageously alone; how far
we’ve come, suddenly, from shore.

ALT

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124d

Happy #Caturday!

T.S. Eliot's 1939 collection of whimsical light poems, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, is entirely dedicated to felines and served as the basis for the musical Cats.

#poetry #poem #kitty #cat #cats #poet #eliot #tseliot #catsOfMastodon #books #reading #literature #bookstodon @bookstodon #books #books #booksky #booktok #bookwyrm #bookstagram #feline #today #cartoon #catsOfFediverse

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188d

There’s no a muir in my ain land but’s fu’ o’ sang the day,
Wi’ the whaup, and the gowden plover, and the lintie upon the brae.
The birk in the glen is springin’, the rowan-tree in the shaw,
And every burn is rinnin’ wild wi’ the meltin’ o’ the snaw…

—Lady John Scott, “The Comin’ o’ the Spring”

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/comin-o-spring/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #Spring

The Comin’ o’ the Spring
Lady John Scott

There’s no a muir in my ain land but’s fu’ o’ sang the day,
Wi’ the whaup, and the gowden plover, and the lintie upon the brae.
The birk in the glen is springin’, the rowan-tree in the shaw,
And every burn is rinnin’ wild wi’ the meltin’ o’ the snaw.

The wee white cluds in the blue lift are hurryin’ light and free,
Their shadows fleein’ on the hills, where I, too, fain wad be;
The wind frae the west is blawin’, and wi’ it seems to bear
The scent o’ the thyme and gowan thro’ a’ the caller air.

The herd doon the hillside’s linkin’. O licht his heart may be
Whose step is on the heather, his glance ower muir and lea!
On the Moss are the wild ducks gatherin’, whar the pules like diamonds lie,
And far up soar the wild geese, wi’ weird, unyirdly cry.

In mony a neuk the primrose lies hid frae stranger een,
An’ the broom on the knowes is wavin’ wi’ its cludin o’ gowd and green;
Ower the first green sprigs o’ heather, the muir-fowl faulds his wing,
And there’s nought but joy in my ain land at the comin’ o’ the Spring!

ALT

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186d

Scotland, you have invoked her name
just once too often
in your Presbyterian living rooms.
She’s heard, yea
even unto heathenish Arabia
your vixen’s bark of poverty…

—Kathleen Jamie, “The Queen of Sheba”
first published in THE QUEEN OF SHEBA (Bloodaxe Books,1994)

A poem for International Womens’ Day

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #womenwriters #InternationalWomensDay #QueenofSheba

KATHLEEN JAMIE
The Queen of Sheba

Scotland, you have invoked her name
just once too often
in your Presbyterian living rooms.
She’s heard, yea
even unto heathenish Arabia
your vixen’s bark of poverty, come down
the family like a lang neb, a thrawn streak,
a wally dug you never liked
but can’t get shot of.

She’s had enough. She’s come.
Whit, tae this dump? Yes!
She rides first camel
of a swaying caravan
from her desert sands
to the peat and bracken
of the Pentland hills
across the fit-ba pitch
to the thin mirage
of the swings and chute; scattered with glass.

ALT

Breathe that steamy musk
on the Curriehill Road, not mutton-shanks
boiled for broth, nor the chlorine stink
of the swimming pool where skinny girls
accuse each other of verrucas.
In her bathhouses women bear
warm pot-bellied terracotta pitchers
on their laughing hips.
All that she desires, whatever she asks
She will make the bottled dreams
of your wee lasses look like sweeties.

Spangles scarcely cover
her gorgeous breasts, hanging gardens
jewels, frankincense; more voluptuous
even than Vi-next-door, whose
high-heeled slippers
keeked from dressing gowns
like little hooves, wee tails
of pink fur stuffed in the cleavage of her toes;
more audacious even than Currie Liz
who led the gala floats
through the Wimpey scheme
in a ruby-red Lotus Elan
before the Boys’ Brigade band
and the Brownies’ borrowed coal-truck;
hair piled like candy-floss;
who lifted her hands from the neat wheel
to tinkle her fingers
at her tricks
among the Masons and the elders and the police.

The cool black skin
of the Bible couldn’t hold her,
nor the atlas green
on the kitchen table,
you stuck with thumbs
and split to fruity hemispheres –
yellow Yemen, Red Sea, Ethiopia. Stick in
with the homework and you’ll be

ALT

cliver like yer faither.
but no too cliver,
no above yersel.

See her lead those great soft camels
widdershins round the kirk-yaird,
smiling
as she eats
avocados with apostle spoons
she’ll teach us how. But first

she wants to strip the willow
she desires the keys
to the National Library
she is beckoning
the lasses
in the awestruck crowd ...

Yes, we’d like to
clap the camels,
to smell the spice,
admire her hairy legs and
bonny wicked smile, we want to take
PhDs in Persian, be vice
to her president: we want
to help her
ask some Difficult Questions

she’s shouting for our wisest man
to test her mettle:

Scour Scotland for a Solomon!

Sure enough: from the back of the crowd
someone growls:
whae do you think y’ur?

and a thousand laughing girls and she
draw our hot breath
and shout:

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA!

ALT

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186d

All our lives, in every city,
out of every landscape
the waters of the Alhambra
have been murmuring to us…

—Imtiaz Dharker, “Women Bathing”
from The Terrorist At My Table (Bloodaxe Books, 2006)

A poem for International Woman’s Day

https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/the-terrorist-at-my-table-837

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #womenwriters #InternationalWomensDay

Women Bathing
by Imtiaz Dharker

All our lives, in every city,
out of every landscape
the waters of the Alhambra
have been murmuring to us.
From fountains, from watercourses,
from the secret pools in courtyards,
voices calling across centuries.

The other women are bathing
in the moonlight.

‘Come,’ they say, ‘Come out of the day’s heat,
out of shaded rooms, let’s escape and slip away,
let the veils fall, one by one.
Slide into the pools that lie like mirrors of the sky,
and let the moon wash over our bodies.’

Bodies lush, generously-hipped.
Bodies like pomegranates,
bursting with promises.

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186d

I didna speak
whan it bleetert doon.
Ma man wis gey taen up wi’ getting us
sortit, an’ it wis fell lang afore we had
the bastes in an’ the fowl settled…

—Eunice Buchanan, “Wife to Noah”
published in MARKINGS 30 (2010)

A poem for International Women’s Day

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/wife-noah/

#Scottish #literature #InternationalWomensDay #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage

Wife to Noah
Eunice Buchanan

I didna speak
whan it bleetert doon.
Ma man wis gey taen up wi’ getting us
sortit, an’ it wis fell lang afore we had
the bastes in an’ the fowl settled.

I didna speak
whan the watters spewed
ower ma rigs o’ corn an’ doon the street
intae ma hoose amangst ma rugs
an’ the bonny things I had fae ma mither.

I didna speak
whan I heard ma frien
Becca battrin at the howe o’ wir boat,
her bairn in her airms, yowlin like een
o’ the damned o’Hell. We had linkit
doon the years fae bairnie tae wife.
Ma bonny hinnie, weel-hertit Becca.
I clappit ma haunds tae ma lugs
an’ flung ma airms aboot ma laddies,
but still I didna speak

I didna speak
whan the lift grew black an’ blacker
an’ there wis naither muin nor sun an’ the cries
that had been aa aboot us wir smoored.
Nae soond on that black sea but the doonfa, the dreep,
the plowt, the pish-oot o’ grey watter on grey watter.

I canna speak
o’ the things on the watter
as the days drave on – swollen an’ blae,
wi the sea-maws skirlin an’ pickin, skirlin an’ pickin.
Syne whan the well-heid dried an’ the watters sank,
the laund, oor bonny laund, slaich an’ slairy
wi’ black glaur,
an’ oorsels alane.

But whan I gang the low road on the hinmaist day
an’ I climb the steps for my tryst wi’ God
I will look the Almichty in the face –
an’ I will hae ma say.

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186d

Her hair is cut into that perfect slant –
An innovation circa ’64 by Vidal Sassoon.
She’s wearing C&A’s best effort at Quant
Ending just below the knicker-line, daisy-strewn…

—Liz Lochhead, “Photograph, Art Student, Female, Working Class, 1966”
Published in FUGITIVE COLOURS (Birlinn, 2016)

A poem for International Women’s Day

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/fugitive-colours/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #InternationalWomensDay

Photograph, Art Student, Female, Working Class
Liz Lochhead

Her hair is cut into that perfect slant –
An innovation circa ‘64 by Vidal Sassoon.
She’s wearing C&A’s best effort at Quant
Ending just below the knicker-line, daisy-strewn.
Keeping herself in tights could blow her grant
Entirely, so each precious pair is soon
Spattered with nail varnish dots that stop each run.
She’s a girl, eighteen – just wants to have fun.

She’s not ‘a chick’. Not yet. Besides, by then
She’ll find the term ‘offensive’. ‘Dollybird’ to quote
Her favourite mags, is what she aspires to when
Her head’s still full of Honey and Petticoat.
It’s almost the last year that, quite this blithely, men
Up ladders or on building sites wolf-whistle to note
The approval they’re sure she will appreciate.
Why not? She did it for their benefit, looks great.

Nor does she object. Wouldn’t think she has the right.
Though when that lech of a lecturer comments on her tits
To a male classmate, openly, she might
Feel – quick as a run in nylon – that it’s
Not what ought to happen, is not polite,
She’ll burn, but smile, have no word that fits
The insult, can’t subject it to language’s prism.
In sixty-six there’s plenty sex, but not ‘sexism’.

ALT

Soon: The Female Eunuch and enough
Will be enough. Thanks to newfound feminism and Greer,
Women’ll have the words for all this stuff,
What already rankles, but confuses her, will seem clear
And she’ll (consciously) be no one’s ‘bit of fluff’
Or ‘skirt’ or ‘crumpet’. She’ll know the rule is ‘gay’ not ‘queer’,
‘Ms’ not ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs’ – she’ll happily obey it
And, sure as the Pill in her pocket, that’s how she’ll say it.

This photo’s saying nothing, is black and white, opaque.
A frozen moment, not a memory.
The boyfriend with the Pentax took it for the sake
Of taking it, a shot among many others, randomly,
To see how it would develop. Didn’t imagine it’d make
An image so typical it’d capture time so perfectly.
How does she feel? Hey, girl, did it feel strange
To be waiting for the a-changing times to change?

ALT

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186d

in the room/in the street/on the stair/where some men make free
in plain sight or in secret as if we were sweetmeat…

—Pippa Little, “Spartaca”
published in #MeToo: A women’s poetry anthology (Fair Acre Press, 2018)

A poem for International Women’s Day

https://fairacrepress.co.uk/shop/metoo-rallying-against-sexual-assault-and-harassment-a-womens-poetry-anthology/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #InternationalWomensDay #MeToo

Spartaca
by Pippa Little

in the room/in the street/on the stair/where some men make free
in plain sight or in secret as if we were sweetmeat/to dip
fingers in and then forget – it is the being alone
afterwards that numbs and maims, utterly
alone in the silence of it/where shame creeps in/
stuns dead/but now we rise, all women
fondled and hurt and licked in acid jokery and in hate,
pets, sweethearts, loves, darlings, humourless bitches –
we stand together, each one a Spartaca
no longer silent or alone: each voice stronger,
massing, alive, a wild murmuration
of me too/me too/me too

Spartacus was a rebel slave hunted down by the Romans to be crucified. Asked to identify himself by soldiers, everyone in the crowd around him stepped forward and said ‘I am Spartacus’.

ALT

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185d

How we could ever have come to this pass?
Is all we are asking…

—James Findlay Hendry (1912–1986), “Question & Answer”

With GS Fraser & Henry Treece, the author, poet & translator JF Hendry was a contributor to the “New Apocalyptics” poetic movement of the 1930s & 40s

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoetry #20thcentury #WW2

J. F. Hendry
Question and Answer

How we could ever have come to this pass?
Is all we are asking. Each of our
Bursts of anti-aircraft fire
Hangs a torn wound of questions in the air.

How we could ever, like cattle at grass,
Drift with shadowless clouds, unaware,
Into this era of lightnings and war?
There is no shelter, now or ever, from that answer.

ALT

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173d

you don’t get prose in anapaestic dimeters
nobody publishes their first slim volume of prose
aristotle never wrote The Proses

—Tom Leonard, “100 Differences Between Poetry & Prose”

Today, 21 March, is World Poetry Day!

https://www.tomleonard.co.uk/online-poetry-and-prose/100-differences-between-poetry-and-prose.html

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

100 Differences Between Poetry and Prose
Tom Leonard

poetry stops before the end of the margin
you can talk about prose without mentioning school
you don’t read poetry to get from Glasgow to Saltcoats without noticing

John Menzies doesn’t stock poetry
whoever heard of war & peace having the line as a unit of semantic yield
you can call a poem what you want and say its poetic licence

poetry is the subliminal history of linguistic shape
ahem
poetry has four wheels, two wings and a pair of false teeth

poetry is the heart and the brain divided by the lungs
poetry is the world’s oldest cock and fanny story

you don’t get prose in anapaestic dimeters
nobody publishes their first slim volume of prose
aristotle never wrote The Proses

if you dribble past five defenders, it isn’t called sheer prose
poets are the unacknowledged thingwaybobs

poetry is quintessentially contrapuntal
the square root of poetry is an ever-evolving quark
whenever Vergil looked in the mirror, he beheld an epic Latin poet

poetry is all the juicy bits in the juiciest order
poetry is jellied religion
pascal: if your labourers complain too much, try taking them to a poetry reading

prose goes scchhpludd
prose goes scchhpludd scchhpludd clomp clomp clomp
are you sitting comfortably

then I’ll end

ALT

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173d

It’s for weddings
and funerals
and reading on the train
and for taking a person out of herself
and bringing her back more sane…

—Helena Nelson, “Poetry Forum”
published in DOWN WITH POETRY! (Happenstance, 2016)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/poetry-forum/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

Poetry Forum
by Helena Nelson

What is poetry for? (Maitreyabhandu)

It’s for weddings
and funerals
and reading on the train
and for taking a person out of herself
and bringing her back more sane.

It’s for children
and lunatics
and chimney-sweeps and punks
It’s for teachers
and preachers
and politicians and drunks.

It’s for dinner
and afternoon tea
and marvellous midnight snacks.
It’s for cravings
and ravings
and low-poetry attacks.

It’s for four o’clock
for four of us
and for five o’clock
for five.
It’s for fortitude
and forums
for formalists to survive.

It’s for all we know intelligent
and rarely less than clever.
You can get some
for nothing
and remember it
forever.

ALT

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173d

Tha i mar bharaille de sgadan saillte:
chan eil agad ach do chròg
a stobadh ann, agus dòrlach a thoirt a-mach,
reamhar is tiugh leis a’ bhuntàta…

—Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul, “Bàrdachd”
published in AIBISIDH, Polygon Books 2011

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

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

Bàrdachd
Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul

Tha i mar bharaille de sgadan saillte:
chan eil agad ach do chròg
a stobadh ann, agus dòrlach a thoirt a-mach,
reamhar is tiugh leis a’ bhuntàta.

Stob
an t-ìm na mheasg
agus tha cuirm agad: Eliot is Donnachadh Bàn,
le do làmhan rùisgte. Seachain
forca is sgian: fàg sin aig na sgoilearan.

Nuair a thig thu gu bonn a’ bharaille
sgròb na craicinn ri chèile,
dean ràth chnàimhean,
lìon lannan
’s tilg sin thairis
dìreach mu àm reothairt.

Ma ghlacas tu adag,
thoir leat i: nuair tha an sgadan
gann, nì easgann fraighte fhèin a’ chùis
san acras.

ALT

Poetry
Angus Peter Campbell

It’s like a barrel of salt herring:
you only have to stick your paw
in, and lift a handful out,
thick and juicy with the tatties.

Pile
the butter in the middle
and you have a feast: Eliot and Duncan Bàn,
eaten with your bare fingers. Don’t use
a knife and fork: leave that to the scholars.

When you reach the bottom of the barrel
scrape the skins together,
make a raft of bones,
a net of fine filament,
and fling it over the side
just after the spring tide.

If you catch a common haddock,
take it anyway: in the absence
of a fat herring even eels
taste fine when deep-fried.

ALT

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173d

a cop in a panda
wound down his window & asked us
what we had in our bags
to which we shouted POETRY!
in unison,
lifted
thick majestic photocopies
and POEMS OF THIRTY YEARS
by Edwin Morgan into the air
as he looked on in horror
and told us to be on our way
and not to do it again…

—Graham Fulton, “Poetry Reaper”

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/poetry-reaper/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

The Poetry Reaper
Graham Fulton

sitting in The Scotia
after John McGarrigle who-
was-killed-in-The Clutha’s funeral,
wolfing
triangular tuna sandwiches
and listening to someone singing
We Shall Overcome
into a feedback microphone, I ask
Bobby Christie
if he remembers walking home
twenty-five years ago
from Tom Leonard’s Writers’ Group
in Paisley in the dark
with
towering orange streetlamps
and turning left into Penilee Road
where a cop in a panda
wound down his window and asked us
what we had in our bags
to which we shouted POETRY!
in unison,
lifted
thick majestic photocopies
and POEMS OF THIRTY YEARS
by Edwin Morgan into the air
as he looked on in horror
and told us to be on our way
and not to do it again

ALT

and Bobby
disappeared over the hill
as I turned right into Atholl Crescent
to go to a house where I no longer live
to talk to people who
are no longer there,
and Jim Ferguson
is wearing a burning red tie
and brandishing a virtual cigarette, and
We Shall Overcome was sung
by Joan Baez in 1963, it’s really
hard to believe, it feels
as if yesterday
has still to happen, tomorrow
is already gone

ALT

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