Eggplant.place

1y

"He's not quite blue yet, but that will come, you shall see!"

#OTD in 1908.

Maurice Maeterlinck's L'Oiseau bleu is premièred, at Konstantin Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre.

The French composer Albert Wolff wrote an opera (first performed at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1919) based on Maeterlinck's original play, and Maeterlinck's inamorata Georgette Leblanc produced a novelization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Bird_(play)

The Blue Bird at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/8606

#books #literature #poetry

Alisa Coonen (Mytyl; left) & Sofya Khalyutina (Tyltyl; right) in The Blue Bird of Moscow Art Theatre (1908).

Karl Fischer (Фишер, Карл Андреевич) - http://www.gazeta.lv/story/11970.html

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88d

100 years on, T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men is a poem for our populist moment

His 1925 poem "The Hollow Men," published 100 years ago, bridges the nihilism of "The Waste Land" (1922) and his spiritual rebirth, reflecting his evolving faith journey.

by Luke Johnson

https://theconversation.com/100-years-on-t-s-eliots-the-hollow-men-is-a-poem-for-our-populist-moment-269487

Eliot at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/599

#books #literature #poetry

T.S. Eliot with his sister and his cousin

by Lady Ottoline Morrell
vintage snapshot print, 1934

The photograph is a vintage black-and-white snapshot from 1934, taken outdoors in what appears to be a garden or courtyard with tall brick buildings in the background. Three people sit at a table set for tea.

On the left, Eliot in a suit sits facing the camera, hands resting on the table. In the center, Eliot's cousin wearing a dark coat and hat sits slightly turned to the side, holding a cane. On the right, Eliot's sister in a patterned dress looks downward, her expression quiet and reserved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot#/media/File:Thomas_Stearns_Eliot_by_Lady_Ottoline_Morrell_(1934).jpg

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86d

“Helen Adam marched through her life to the beat of her own drum”
—Kristin Prevallet

Helen Adam (1909–1993) – fey child prodigy (published by Faber & Faber at 14) & daughter of the manse; bardic matriarch of the San Francisco Beats; Worm Queen – was born #OTD, 2 Dec.

A 🎂🧵

1/7

https://caesuramag.org/posts/kristin-prevallet-poems-by-helen-adam

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #gothic #supernatural #ballads #SanFrancisco #BeatPoets #poetry

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1y

#OTD in 1869.

Model, poet and artist Elizabeth Siddal (d. 1862) is exhumed at Highgate Cemetery in London in order to recover the manuscript of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Poems buried with her.

Rossetti then published the contents in Poems (1870). These became part of Rossetti's sonnet sequence entitled The House of Life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Siddal#After_Siddal's_death

The House of Life at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3692

#books #literature #poetry

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal 1854

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Marsh, Jan (1996). The Pre-Raphaelites: Their Lives in Letters and Diaries. London: Collins & Brown

In the portrait, Siddal is shown with her characteristic long, flowing red hair, which became a hallmark of Rossetti's paintings. Her features are soft but marked by a melancholy or introspective expression, reflecting the delicate and enigmatic quality she embodied in much of Rossetti’s work. The artist’s use of line and color accentuates her pale complexion and ethereal beauty, while her elongated neck and serene posture give her an almost otherworldly grace.

Rossetti’s portrayal of Siddal in this piece emphasizes her as an idealized figure of beauty and fragility, embodying the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of the "tragic muse." Siddal was often depicted by Rossetti in this way, reflecting both her personal struggles with illness and her symbolic role in his artistic vision.

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87d

When the day-birds have settled
in their creaking trees,
the doors of the forest open
for the flitting
drift of deer
among the bright croziers
of new ferns
and the legible stars…

—Robin Robertson, “What the Horses See at Night”
published in SAILING THE FOREST: Selected Poems (Picador, 2014)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/robin-robertson/sailing-the-forest/9781447231554

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #naturewriting #naturepoetry

What the Horses See at Night
by Robin Robertson

When the day-birds have settled
in their creaking trees,
the doors of the forest open
for the flitting
drift of deer
among the bright croziers
of new ferns
and the legible stars;
foxes stream from the earth;
a tawny owl
frisks the long meadow.
In a slink of river-light,
the mink’s face
is already slippery with yolk,
and the bay’s
tiny islands are drops
of solder
under a drogue moon.
The sea’s a heavy sleeper,
dreaming in and out with a catch
in each breath, and is not disturbed

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by that plowt – the first
in a play of herring, a shoal
silvering open
the sheeted black skin of the sea.
Through the starting rain, the moon
skirrs across the sky dragging
torn shreds of cloud behind.
The fox’s call is red
and ribboned
in the snow’s white shadow.
The horses watch the sea climb
and climb and walk
towards them on the hill,
hear the vole
crying under the alder,
our children
breathing slowly in their beds.

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87d

Robert Burns & the Glenriddell Manuscripts
22 January 2026, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh – free

Discover the incredible story of the Glenriddell Manuscripts – the largest collection of Robert Burns’s original writings in the world.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/robert-burns-and-the-glenriddell-manuscripts-tickets-1975276014733

#Scottish #literature #RobertBurns #18thcentury #poetry #song #letters #manuscripts

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72d

goodk kkkkk unjam ingwe nches lass? start again goodk
lassw enche sking start again kings tart! again sorry…

—Edwin Morgan, “The Computer’s Second Christmas Card”
published in COLLECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 1990)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781857541885/collected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #concretepoetry #20thcentury #computing #EdwinMorgan

(written in bright green text, in a monospaced font on a black background, to emulate an old CRT computer monitor; the text is divided up into blocks of five letters each)

The Computer's Second Christmas Card
by Edwin Morgan

goodk kkkkk unjam ingwe nches lass? start again goodk
lassw enche sking start again kings tart! again sorry
goodk ingwe ncesl ooked outas thef? unmix asloo kedou
tonth effff rewri tenow goodk ingwe ncesl asloo kedou
tonth effff fffff unjam feast ofsai ntste venst efanc
utsai ntrew ritef easto fstep toeso rryan dsons orry!
start again good? yesgo odkin gwenc eslas looke dout?
doubt wrong track start again goodk ingwe ncesl asloo
kedou tonth efeas tofst ephph phphp hphph unjam phphp
repea tunja mhphp scrub carol hphph repea tscru bcaro
lstop subst itute track merry chris tmasa ndgoo dnewy
earin 1699? check digit banks orryi n1966 endme ssage

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92d

My #Introduction.

I talk about life in #CambridgeMA and #Boston, #engineering, #science, #radios (#SDR, #HAM, #LoRa, #MeshCore), #pinball, #film, retro computers/video games, and more.

I collect #art, #LaserDiscs, study #horology, visit museums (The Met, MFA, Harvard Art #Museum) and support my local #library.

I read #poetry and books on #architecture, #design, and #urbanism.

I walk or take public #transit everywhere.

I practice #permacomputing and self-hosting, running #BSD where I can.

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1y

"Nothing, it is true, is more common than for both Science and Art to pay homage to the spirit of the age, and for creative taste to accept the law of critical taste."

Letter 8 - On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)

~Friedrich Schiller

#books #literature #poetry

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85d

Sradagan san Iarmailt / Sparks in the Firmament⁠
A New Generation of Gaelic Poets⁠
Edited by Marcas Mac an Tuairneir⁠
⁠
This wide-ranging anthology showcases the talented cohort of Gaelic poets who have come to prominence since the turn of the millennium⁠. ⁠
⁠
A new compendium introducing these sensitive and often radical voices to wider readerships through translation into English, Scots, and other European languages.

https://francisboutle.co.uk/products/sradagan-san-iarmailt-sparks-in-the-firmament/⁠
⁠
#Gaelic #Gàidhlig #ScotLit #Poetry #GaelicPoetry

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84d

Ogden Nash makes a splash

Ogden Nash found success after The New Yorker hired him in 1930, launching a long career of humorous, playful verse. His earliest published poems enter public domain pretty soon.

By John Mark Ockerbloom

https://everybodyslibraries.com/2025/12/03/ogden-nash-makes-a-splash/

#books #poetry #publicDomainDayCountdown

Photo of panelist Ogden Nash and Dagmar from the television game show Masquerade Party.

This 1950s photo shows poet Ogden Nash with actress/TV personality Dagmar on the game show "Masquerade Party." Nash, wearing glasses and bow tie, sits at a panel desk while the glamorous Dagmar stands beside him.

via ABC Television

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogden_Nash#/media/File:Ogden_Nash_Dagmar_Masquerade_Party_1955.jpg

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84d

#OTD in 1875, poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke is born

Rilke "was an Austrian poet and novelist. Acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, he is widely recognized as a significant writer in the German language. His work is viewed by critics and scholars as possessing undertones of mysticism, exploring themes of subjective experience and disbelief."

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

Rilke at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/846

#books #literature #poetry

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70d

Now the ice lays its smooth claws on the sill,
The sun looks from the hill
Helmed in his winter casket,
And sweeps his arctic sword across the sky…

—Edwin Muir, “Scotland’s Winter”
from ONE FOOT IN EDEN (Faber, 1956)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #EdwinMuir #winter

Scotland’s Winter
by Edwin Muir

Now the ice lays its smooth claws on the sill,
The sun looks from the hill
Helmed in his winter casket,
And sweeps his arctic sword across the sky.
The water at the mill
Sounds more hoarse and dull.
The miller’s daughter walking by
With frozen fingers soldered to her basket
Seems to be knocking
Upon a hundred leagues of floor
With her light heels, and mocking
Percy and Douglas dead,
And Bruce on his burial bed,
Where he lies white as may
With wars and leprosy,
And all the kings before
This land was kingless,
And all the singers before
This land was songless,
This land that with its dead and living waits the Judgment Day.
But they, the powerless dead,
Listening can hear no more
Than a hard tapping on the sounding floor
A little overhead
Of common heels that do not know
Whence they come or where they go
And are content
With their poor frozen life and shallow banishment.

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71d

doun riven the tint braith
mawkin scribbles owre the snaw
wee arles o sun-daith
water warstles wechty, slaw …

—Kate Armstrong, “Pantoum fer Winter”
published in A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS (ASL, 2016)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-kist-o-skinlan-things/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #pantoum #Scots #Scotslanguage #winter

Kate Armstrong
Pantoum fer Winter

doun riven the tint braith
mawkin scribbles owre the snaw
wee arles o sun-daith
water warstles wechty, slaw

mawkin scribbles owre the snaw
sternies bou tae the mockrife mune
water warstles wechty, slaw
nou the taid an puddock sloum

sternies bou tae the mockrife mune
houlets hunker saft as haar
nou the taid an puddock sloum
grippit fest in dwinin lair

houlets hunker saft as haar
winter’s nieve is cauld an sterk
grippit fest in dwinin lair
aa maun learn tae dree the mirk

winter’s nieve is cauld an sterk
doun riven the tint braith
aa maun learn tae dree the mirk
wee arles o sun daith

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1y

#OTD in 1922.

T. S. Eliot founds The Criterion magazine, with the first appearance of his poem The Waste Land. This will be first fully published in book form by Boni & Liveright in New York in December.

Eliot's goal was to make it a literary review dedicated to the maintenance of standards and the reunification of a European intellectual community.

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

The Waste Land at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1321

#books #literature #poetry

Title page of the first book edition (December 1922) of The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot.

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71d

Some December midnight
Christ, lord, lie warm in our byre.
Here are stars, an ox, poverty enough.

—George Mackay Brown, “A Child’s Calendar”
published in FISHERMEN WITH PLOUGHS (Hogarth Press 1971)

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #Christmas #poem #poetry #Orkney

A Child's Calendar
George Mackay Brown

No visitors in January.
A snowman smokes a cold pipe in the yard.

They stand about like ancient women,
The February hills.
They have seen many a coming and going, the hills.

In March Moorfea is littered
With knock-kneed lambs.

Daffodils at the door in April,
Three shawled Marys.
A lark splurges in galilees of sky.

And in May
A russet stallion shoulders the hill apart.
The mares tremble.

The June bee
Bumps in the pane with a heavy bag of plunder.

Strangers swarm in July
With cameras, binoculars, bird books.

He thumped the crag in August,
A blind blue whale.

September crofts get wrecked in blond surges.
They struggle, the harvesters.
They drag loaf and ale-kirn into winter.

In October the fishmonger
Argues, pleads, threatens at the shore.

Nothing in November
But tinkers at the door, keening, with cans.

Some December midnight
Christ, lord, lie warm in our byre.
Here are stars, an ox, poverty enough.

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50d

it wis January
and a gey dreich day
the first day Ah went to the school…

—Liz Lochhead, “Kidspoem/Bairnsang”
published in A CHOOSING: The Selected Poems of Liz Lochhead (Polygon, 2017)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #scots #language #MinorityLanguages

Kidspoem/Bairnsang
Liz Lochhead

it wis January
and a gey dreich day
the first day Ah went to the school
so my Mum happed me up in ma
good navy-blue napp coat wi the rid tartan hood
birled a scarf aroon ma neck
pu’ed oan ma pixie an my pawkies
it wis that bitter
said noo ye’ll no starve
gie’d me a wee kiss and a kid-oan skelp oan the bum
and sent me aff across the playground
tae the place Ah’d learn to say
it was January
and a really dismal day
the first day I went to school
so my mother wrapped me up in my
best navy-blue top coat with the red tartan hood
twirled a scarf around my neck
pulled on my bobble-hat and mittens
it was so bitterly cold
said now you won’t freeze to death
gave me a little kiss and a pretend slap on the bottom
and sent me off across the playground
to the place I’d learn to forget to say
it wis January
and a gey dreich day
the first day Ah went to the school
so my Mum happed me up in ma
good navy-blue napp coat wi the rid tartan hood
birled a scarf aroon ma neck
pu’ed oan ma pixie an ma pawkies
it wis that bitter.

Oh saying it was one thing
but when it came to writing it
in black and white
the way it had to be said
was as if you were posh, grown-up, male, English and dead.

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1y

English poet and novelist Letitia Elizabeth Landon died #OTD in 1838.

Her first major breakthrough came with The Improvisatrice and thence she developed the metrical romance towards the Victorian ideal of the Victorian monologue, influencing fellow English writers such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson and Christina Rossetti.

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

Books about Letitia Elizabeth Landon at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56166

#books #literature #poetry

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838); variation of the original painting by Daniel Maclise.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L.E.L.) was a renowned English poet and novelist of the early 19th century, known for her Romantic works. In the portrait by Daniel Maclise, she is depicted with a delicate and refined appearance, typical of Romantic portraiture of the time. The original shows her seated gracefully, with soft curls framing her face, gazing thoughtfully into the distance. Her attire consists of elegant 19th-century clothing, with rich textures and details.

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67d

He has gone down into darkness at the wrecked end of the year
And is lying, gaberlunzie, in the needled nest of frost…

—Gerry Cambridge, “Processional at the Winter Solstice”
published in Notes for Lighting a Fire (HappenStance Press 2012)

https://happenstancepress.com/index.php/shop/product/4-notes-for-lighting-a-fire-gerry-cambridge/category_pathway-12

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #midwinter #solstice

Processional at the Winter Solstice
by Gerry Cambridge

He has gone down into darkness at the wrecked end of the year
And is lying, gaberlunzie, in the needled nest of frost.
The arctic thrushes call for him although he cannot hear,

And the worm too understands him in the chilled grip of its dark,
And the ptarmigan in blizzards where no thought is worth a crumb,
And treecreepers in shivering puffs in Wellingtonias’ bark.

Shop windows glint in city lights like ice and sky, but still
No tinsel gifts can touch him, freed to silence like a stone’s;
His face is white as paper’s white in miles-high midnight chill.

He lies as plain as frost-dust where those starving thrushes call,
And his lime and ray-struck armoury could hardly be less small
On the anvil of beginnings in the sun’s gate on the wall.

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69d

Coming up Buchanan Street, quickly, on a sharp winter evening
a young man and two girls, under the Christmas lights –
The young man carries a new guitar in his arms,
the girl on the inside carries a very young baby,
and the girl on the outside carries a chihuahua…

—Edwin Morgan, “Trio”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #Christmas #BuchananStreet #EdwinMorgan

Trio
by Edwin Morgan

Coming up Buchanan Street, quickly, on a sharp winter evening
a young man and two girls, under the Christmas lights –
The young man carries a new guitar in his arms,
the girl on the inside carries a very young baby,
and the girl on the outside carries a chihuahua.
And the three of them are laughing, their breath rises
in a cloud of happiness, and as they pass
the boy says, “Wait till he sees this but!”
The chihuahua has a tiny Royal Stewart tartan coat like a teapot-holder,
the baby in its white shawl is all bright eyes and mouth like favours in a fresh sweet cake,
the guitar swells out under its milky plastic cover, tied at the neck with silver tinsel tape and a brisk sprig of mistletoe.
Orphean sprig! Melting baby! Warm chihuahua!
The vale of tears is powerless before you.
Whether Christ is born, or is not born, you
put paid to fate, it abdicates
under the Christmas lights.
Monsters of the year
go blank, are scattered back,
can’t bear this march of three.

– And the three have passed, vanished in the crowd
(yet not vanished, for in their arms they wind
the life of men and beasts, and music,
laughter ringing them round like a guard)
at the end of this winter’s day.

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1y

#OTD in 1917.

The 51-year-old poet W. B. Yeats marries 25-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees at Harrow Road register office in London, with Ezra Pound as best man, a couple of months after Yeats' proposal of marriage to his ex-mistress's daughter, Iseult Gonne, is rejected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeats#Marriage_to_Georgie_Hyde-Lees

Books by W. B. Yeats at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1719

#books #literature #poetry

Walter de la Mare, Bertha Georgie Yeats (née Hyde-Lees), William Butler Yeats, unknown woman, summer 1930; photo by Lady Ottoline Morrell.

In the image, the group is outdoors, likely in a garden or rural setting, characteristic of Lady Ottoline's gatherings at her homes. The lighting is soft, typical of an English summer, lending a relaxed and somewhat nostalgic quality to the photograph.

Walter de la Mare, the English poet and author, stands or sits calmly, perhaps slightly to one side.

Bertha Georgie Yeats (née Hyde-Lees), the wife of William Butler Yeats, appears in the photograph with a sense of quiet elegance.

William Butler Yeats, the famed Irish poet, stands or sits prominently in the image, his distinctive features easily recognizable.

The unknown woman is present alongside the others, her identity and role a mystery, adding an air of intrigue to the photograph.

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1y

Dutch author and poet Isabelle de Charrière, known as Belle van Zuylen, was born #OTD in 1740.

She is now best known for her letters and novels, although she also wrote pamphlets, music and plays. She took a keen interest in the society and politics of her age, and her work around the time of the French Revolution is regarded as being of particular interest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle_de_Charri%C3%A8re

Books by Isabelle de Charrière at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Isabelle+de+Charri%C3%A8re&submit_search=Go%21

#books #literature #poetry

Isabelle de Charrière by Jens Juel, (1777), Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Neuchâtel.

Jens Juel - http://www.charriere.nl/images/juel.htm [1]

Isabelle de Charrière, born Isabelle Agneta Elisabeth van Tuyll van Serooskerken, known as Belle de Zuylen (1740-1805)

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49d

This was the year before the year
that collapsed on us, a roof brought down by snow.
The year of riding through abandoned stations
on the riverside line that never crossed the river
but danced among warehouses, silos and factories (deceased)
beside battleships settling into red mud…

—Pippa Little, “This Was the Year”
published in OVERWINTERING (Carcanet, 2012)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781906188061/overwintering/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry