Eggplant.place

144d

My seventy-seven-year-old father
put his reading glasses on
to help my mother do the buttons
on the back of her dress…

—“George Square”, by Jackie Kay
LIFE MASK (Bloodaxe, 2005)

Hear Jackie Kay read this poem on the Poetry Archive:

https://poetryarchive.org/poem/george-square/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #peace

George Square
by Jackie Kay

My seventy-seven-year-old father
put his reading glasses on
to help my mother do the buttons
on the back of her dress.
‘What a pair the two of us are!’
my mother said, ‘Me with my sore wrist,
you with your bad eyes, your soft thumbs!’

And off they went, my two parents
to march against the war in Iraq,
him with his plastic hips, her with her arthritis
to congregate at George Square where the banners
waved at each other like old friends, flapping,
where they’d met for so many marches over their years,
for peace on earth, for pity’s sake, for peace, for peace.

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126d

There once was a little lake, that glimmered and shimmered. Heroic folk came to listen, one even stole a sword.

But when the lady finally had enough of all our shit, cut the cord, and settled down for a thousand year blit, we went and built houses, estates and suburbs up and around until the lake more gurgled and purdled in green, black, and Cape Barren geese. 🧵

#Poem

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123d

He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.

And another, and another.
He couldn’t stop…

—Norman MacCaig, “Small Boy”
Published in The Poems of Norman MacCaig, Birlinn 2011

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #NormanMacCaig

Text of a poem, dated July 1985

Small boy
by Norman MacCaig

He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.

And another, and another.
He couldn’t stop.

He wasn’t trying to fill the sea.
He wasn’t trying to empty the beach.

He was just throwing away,
nothing else but.

Like a kitten playing
he was practising for the future

when there’ll be so many things
he’ll want to throw away

if only his fingers will unclench
and let them go.

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143d

Schyr Hanry myssit the noble king…

Robert I, King of Scots, killed Sir Henry de Bohun in single combat on the first day of the Battle of Bannockburn #OTD, 23 June 1314. The epic vernacular poem “The Brus” by John Barbour (c.1320–1395) describes the event

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https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/critical/aboutus/resources/stella/projects/starn/poetry/the-brus/book-12/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #medieval #14thcentury #history #MiddleAges #Bannockburn #epic #vernacular #poem #Scots #Scotslanguage

Text is too long for ALT-text – however full text can be found via the link, lines 25 to 85.

Image description: “Bruce and de Bohun”, by John Duncan (1866–1945), Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum. King Robert I, wearing chain mail, with a gold circlet around his helmet, and a flowing red-gold cloak and a surcoat bearing the Scottish lion rampant (red, on a yellow background) , stands up in the stirrups of the grey horse he is riding. He holds the reins tightly in his left hand and wields a battle-axe in his right. Sir Henry de Bohun, with golden plate armour and a flowing red cloth tied to his helm, rides past, his long lance missing the king. He is crouched low, almost seeming to bow, his head lined up for the blow from the king's axe.

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117d

She’s goat her legs oot –
her foldin plastic chair
oan the gress at Glesga Green –
an her airms an enough
creamy dimpled bosom
tae please Renoir…

—Sheila Templeton, “Glesga Fair”
published in Songs of Other Places: New Writing Scotland 32 (ASL, 2014)

Happy Fair Weekend to all the Glasgow Fairies!

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #Glasgow #GlasgowFair

Glesga Fair
Sheila Templeton

She’s goat her legs oot –
her foldin plastic chair
oan the gress at Glesga Green –
an her airms an enough
creamy dimpled bosom
tae please Renoir;
bra straps oan show,
frock lirkit richt up
ower her knees
sittin lik a mannie
legs weel splayed as if
tae accommodate
magnificent baws –
but it’s no that.
It’s tae mak room
mak a space
for her belly,
lovely big roon
wumman’s belly
growthie in the sun.

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142d

I hate midsummer in the north.
There’s no night to speak of,
just day in and day in
with maybe a slight hesitancy
about two o’clock in the morning…

—Alasdair Maclean, “I Hate Midsummer in the North”
published in From the Wilderness (Gollancz, 1973)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #midsummer

I Hate Midsummer in the North
by Alasdair Maclean

I hate midsummer in the north.
There’s no night to speak of,
just day in and day in
with maybe a slight hesitancy
about two o’clock in the morning.

The sun’s at work continually,
zooming in from some part of the sky,
at some angle or another. In time
it penetrates the thickest skull. In time
it levels up the most forbidding brow.

Light pours down. It makes thing clear.
I see there’s only one world
after all, and it’s a hot one
and a bright one. My hayfield
curls up at the corners. My lips, too.

While the days swagger, elbow one another,
I wait, with what sadness I can muster.
This white weather doesn’t suit me,
I think. I get fatter all the time.
For weeks I live off my stored darkness.

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142d

Here lies our land: every airt
Beneath swift clouds, glad glints of sun,
Belonging to none but itself…

—Kathleen Jamie, “Here lies our land”

This poem was commissioned in 2014 to mark the 700th anniversary of the battle of Bannockburn – fought #OTD, 24 June, 1314. The poem is inscribed on the Bannockburn monument.

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/here-lies-our-land/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Bannockburn #BattleofBannockburn

Here lies our land
Kathleen Jamie

Here lies our land: every airt
Beneath swift clouds, glad glints of sun,
Belonging to none but itself.

We are mere transients, who sing
Its westlin’ winds and fernie braes,
Northern lights and siller tides,

Small folk playing our part.
‘Come all ye’, the country says,
You win me, who take me most to heart.

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120d

Today, 16 July, is #WorldSnakeDay – so here is “Siesta of a Hungarian Snake”, by Edwin Morgan 🐍

Published in New Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2012)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #concretepoetry #snake #snakes #EdwinMorgan

Edwin Morgan
Siesta of a Hungarian Snake

s sz sz SZ sz SZ sz ZS zs ZS zs zs z

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120d

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”
First published in The Pure Account (Aberdeen University Press, 1981), & included in The Wrong Music (@canongatebooks 1989)

A poem for #WorldSnakeDay 🐍

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #naturewriting #Scotland #highlands #snake #snakes

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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141d

Der a ön o haet ida gairden here,
Whaar da sun-flooer proodly staands,
An dark-red roses trowe da green
Laek da lowe fae fiery braands…

—T.A. Robertson (“Vagaland”), “Haem Tochts”
published in The Collected Poems of Vagaland (Shetland Times, 1975)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/haem-tochts/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #Shetland #Shetlandic

Poem is too long for ALT-text: full text available via link in the post.

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115d

Is there a whim-inspired fool,
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,
Let him draw near…

Robert Burns (1759–96) died #OTD, 21 July, aged 37. “A Bard’s Epitaph” is the final poem in the 1786 Kilmarnock Edition of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect

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#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #RobertBurns #18thcentury #romanticism #epitaph

A Bard’s Epitaph
Robert Burns

Is there a whim-inspired fool,
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,
Let him draw near;
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.

Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who, noteless, steals the crowds among,
That weekly this area throng,
O, pass not by!
But, with a frater-feeling strong,
Here, heave a sigh.

Is there a man, whose judgment clear
Can others teach the course to steer,
Yet runs, himself, life’s mad career,
Wild as the wave,
Here pause—and, thro’ the starting tear,
Survey this grave.

The poor inhabitant below
Was quick to learn the wise to know,
And keenly felt the friendly glow,
And softer flame;
But thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stain’d his name!

Reader, attend! whether thy soul
Soars fancy’s flights beyond the pole,
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole,
In low pursuit:
Know, prudent, cautious, self-control
Is wisdom’s root.

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140d

An iarmailt cho soilleir tana
mar gum biodh am brat-sgàile air a reubadh
’s an Cruthaidhear ’na shuidhe am fianuis a shluaigh
aig a’ bhuntàt ’s a sgadan…

—Ruaraidh MacThòmais, “Leodhas as t-Samhradh”

Published in Scottish Religious Poetry from the sixth century to the present (Saint Andrew Press, 2024)

https://standrewpress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781800830479/scottish-religious-poetry

#Scottish #literautre #poem #poetry #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #Hebrides #Lewis #summer

Leodhas as t-Samhradh
Ruaraidh MacThòmais

An iarmailt cho soilleir tana
mar gum biodh am brat-sgàile air a reubadh
’s an Cruthaidhear ’na shuidhe am fianuis a shluaigh
aig a’ bhuntàt ’s a sgadan,
gun duine ris an dèan E altachadh.
’S iongantach gu bheil iarmailt air an t-saoghal
tha cur cho beag a bhacadh air daoine
sealltainn a-steach dha’n an t-sìorruidheachd;
chan eil feum air feallsanachd
far an dèan thu chùis le do phrosbaig.

------------------------------

Lewis in Summer
Translator: Derick Thomson

The atmosphere clear and transparent
as though the veil had been rent
and the Creator were sitting in full view of His people
eating potatoes and herring,
with no man to whom He can say grace.
Probably there’s no other sky in the world
that makes it so easy for people
to look in on eternity;
you don’t need philosophy
where you can make do with binoculars.

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119d

just to see how you’re
faring up there
with little company

just the odd bat or hare
that careers around
‘turning the world’

so you tell me…

—Kathleen Jamie, “Considering a Hike to Yon Tree”
in the London Review of Books, 24 July 2025

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n13/kathleen-jamie/considering-a-hike-to-yon-tree

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

A poem by Kathleen Jamie
Considering a Hike to Yon Tree

just to see how you’re
faring up there
with little company

just the odd bat or hare
that careers around
‘turning the world’

so you tell me. I gather
you snap your fingers
in the face of the east wind

feel the moon groan as she
learns the ropes again
tangled among branches

that you bend, so you say,
to shake her free. You tell me
good will prevail, all

shall be well etcetera,
the same old saws I suspect
you rehearse when you

spot me toiling uphill
in my torn coat, expressly
to listen to your havers.

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116d

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…

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

#OTD, 20 July, 1969, Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon

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

#Scottish #literature #MoonLanding #MoonLandingDay #poem #poetry #astronauts #scifi #scifipoem #scifipoetry

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.

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139d

When all this is over I mean
to travel north, by the high

drove roads and cart tracks
probably in June,

with the gentle dog-roses
flourishing beside me…

—Kathleen Jamie, “Lochan”
published in SELECTED POEMS (Picador, 2018)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/selected-poems/9781509882953

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Kathleen Jamie
Lochan

(For Jean Johnstone)

When all this is over I mean
to travel north, by the high

drove roads and cart tracks
probably in June,

with the gentle dog-roses
flourishing beside me. I mean

to find among the thousands
scattered in that land

a certain quiet lochan,
where water lilies rise

like small fat moons,
and tied among the reeds,

underneath a rowan,
a white boat waits.

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138d

Come all ye lovers and affairs,
singles, discrete souls, and bears,
straightest of straights, bentest of bents,
carbolic scrub, Armani scents…

—Edwin Morgan, “G.G.L.C.”

A poem composed for the opening of the Glasgow Gay & Lesbian Centre, 1995

#Pride #PrideDay 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

https://universityofglasgowlibrary.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/lgbt-history-month-poem-that-launched-gglc/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #Pride #PrideDay #InternationalPrideDay #LGBTQ

G.G.L.C.
Edwin Morgan

On the opening of the Glasgow Gay & Lesbian Centre, 4th November 1995

Come all ye persons of goodwill,
from Newton Mearns to Maryhill,
rattle the chains and launch the boat
and get it properly afloat.
I bash this poem against the bow,
name it G.G.L.C., and endow
its future cruise with benedictions,
sailing past all feuds and frictions.
Come all ye lovers and affairs,
singles, discrete souls, and bears,
straightest of straights, bentest of bents,
carbolic scrub, Armani scents,
Doc Martens girls, minikilt boys,
buyers of exotic toys,
opera queens, ballet queens,
and all the hesitant in-betweens,
trendsetters and anoraks,
underdogs looking for whacks,
indomitably spring-heeled dykes
sweeping up on mountain bikes,
jessies with attitude, closet cases,
solicitors with bright red braces,
Levis with a coloured hanky
to signal the right hanky-panky,
Lurex and Spandex and other ex-es
to mix the senses and the sexes,
but if you should prefer a suit
we'll certainly no pit ye oot,
for this is where we all can meet
down by the river in Dixon Street,
and the Broomielaw rolls on to the sea
with the happy cargo of G.G.L.C.

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115d

Scotland’s a sense of change, an endless
becoming for which there was never a kind
of wholeness or ultimate category.
Scotland’s an attitude of mind.

—“Speaking of Scotland” by Maurice Lindsay (1918–2009) – born #OTD, 21 July
Published in COLLECTED POEMS 1940–1990 (AUP 1990)

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https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/speaking-scotland/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Speaking of Scotland
Maurice Lindsay

What do you mean when you speak of Scotland?
The grey defeats that are dead and gone
behind the legends each generation
savours afresh, yet can’t live on?

Lowland farms with their broad acres
peopling crops? The colder earth
of the North East? Or Highland mountains
shouldering up their rocky dearth?

Inheritance of guilt that our country
has never stood where we feel she should?
A nagging threat of unfinished struggle
somehow forever lost in the blood?

Scotland’s a sense of change, an endless
becoming for which there was never a kind
of wholeness or ultimate category.
Scotland’s an attitude of mind.

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137d

Oh ye, wha in your oors o ease, ‍‍
‍‍Are fashed wi golochs, mauks, an flees,
Fell stingin wasps an bumble bees,
Tak tent o this:
There’s ae sma pest that’s waur nor these
To mar your bliss…

—W.R. Darling, “The Pest”
published in Oor Mither Tongue: An Anthology of Scots Vernacular Verse (Alexander Gardner, 1937)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #midge #midges

The Pest
W. R. Darling

Oh ye, wha in your oors o ease, ‍‍
‍‍Are fashed wi golochs, mauks, an flees,
Fell stingin wasps an bumble bees,
Tak tent o this:
There’s ae sma pest that’s waur nor these
To mar your bliss.

They hing ower hedges, burns, an wuds, ‍‍
‍‍An dance at een in dusky cluds;
Wi aw your random skelps an scuds,
They’re naeweys worrit:
Gin there’s a hole in aw your duds,
They’ll mak straucht for it.

I’ve traivled wast, I’ve traivled east; ‍‍
‍‍‍I’m weel aquaint wi mony a beast;
Wi lions, teegers, bears – at least
I’ve kent their claw:
I’ve been the fell mosquito’s feast –
But this cowes aw.

Auld Scotland, on thy bonnie face, ‍‍
‍‍Whan Mither Nature gied ye grace,
Lown, birken glens an floery braes,
Wild windy ridges,
To save ye frae deleerit praise,
She gied ye midges.

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137d

At the Canongate Wall

“Stone suits the poetry. Or perhaps it’s the other way round. I think poetry suits stone, more than it suits paper, certainly more than it suits a screen. The poetry releases something latent in the stone.”

Kathleen Jamie visits the Canongate Wall in Edinburgh.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/june/at-the-canongate-wall

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #scottishparliament #publicart

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137d

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…

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

29 June is #NationalCameraDay

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #1960s #photograph #photography #womenwriters

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?

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104d

It was upon a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonie,
Beneath the moon’s unclouded light,
I held awa to Annie…

—Robert Burns, “Corn Rigs”
pages from Robert Burns: Selected Poems & Songs (OUP, 2013)

Today, 1 August, is Lammas Day

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/selected-poems-and-songs-9780199682324?cc=gb&lang=en&

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #song #18thcentury #folksong #RobertBurns #Lammas #LammasDay #romanticism #Scots #Scotslanguage

SONG
Tune-Corn Rigs are bonie

It was upon a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonie,
Beneath the moon's unclouded light,
I held awa to Annie:®
The time flew by, wi' tentless heed,
Till 'tween the late and early;
Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed,
To see me thro' the barley.

The sky was blue, the wind was still,
The moon was shining clearly;
I set her down, wi' right good will,
Amang the rigs o' barley:
I ken't her heart was a' my ain;
I lov'd her most sincerely;
I kiss'd her ore and owre again,
Amang the rigs o' barley.

I lock'd her in my fond embrace;
Her heart was beating rarely:
My blessings on that happy place,
Amang the rigs o' barley!
But by the moon and stars so bright,
That shone that hour so clearly!
She ay shall bless that happy night,
Amang the rigs o' barley.

ALT

I hae been blythe wi' Comrades dear;
I hae been merry drinking;
I hae been joyfu gath'rin gear;
I hae been happy thinking:
But a' the pleasures e'er I saw,
Tho' three times doubl'd fairly,
That happy night was worth them a',
Amang the rigs o' barley.

CHORUS
Corn rigs, an' barley rigs,
An' corn rigs are bonie:
I'll ne'er forget that happy night,
Amang the rigs wi' Annie.

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115d

Twenty years ago, Strange Horizons published a poem of mine: “When you left your body lying around.” It was my first “professional” spec-fic publication.

And now, I’m thrilled to say I have another poem accepted by Strange Horizons. This one is called “Watching Migrations.” I am really looking forward to this publication.
#StrangeHorizons #poem

Red dragons flying against dark clouds at twilight. Digital art copyright Keyan Bowes

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136d

so we’re doing the 1960s and leah who’s eleven
nearly twelve says what’s vietnam sir and scott
who has already turned twelve but looks about eight
says it’s in korea isn’t it sir…

—Mark Russell, “Drama”
published in With Their Best Clothes On: New Writing Scotland 36 (ASL, 2018)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws36/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #drama #teaching #teachers

Mark Russell
Drama

so we’re doing the 1960s and leah who’s eleven
nearly twelve says what’s vietnam sir and scott
who has already turned twelve but looks about eight
says it’s in korea isn’t it sir and stephanie laughs
well sort of snorts and looks like she might pee herself
and i say no but it is in the far east like korea
and we look on the map i bought and tacked to the wall
and see why north vietnam was supported by china
but not quite why south vietnam was supported by the usa
and then rab whose name is robbie but he prefers rab
spots korea and says look there’s a north and a south
just like that vietnam hingy and thomas says
wasn’t there a war there too and aiden says shut up
twatface and I have to send him out to mrs lennon
and thomas says it again and we see that north korea
was supported by china and that the americans found
another way of fighting another war a long way from home
and then katie who is very quiet most of the time
says no that wasn’t in the past because it’s happening
today it’s happening now she saw it on her phone
and that we’re all going to die tomorrow or the day after
and both rebeccas stand up waving their hands shouting
we’re not are we sir we’re not are we we’re not going to die
tomorrow are we sir and I say no but what would we do if
we thought we were going to die tomorrow how would we feel
maybe we can make a play about it let’s get into groups

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135d

The First Battle of the Somme began #OTD, 1 July, 1916. Violet Jacob’s only child, Harry, was killed in action in the battle. Jacob’s war poems are some of the most poignant & affecting works from the Home Front.

“To A.H.J.”, from MORE SONGS OF ANGUS & OTHERS (1918)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoem #warpoetry #Somme #WW1 #FirstWorldwar