It is a land of wee
hard men and all I
am wanted for is to
stand and cheer…
Prof Alan Riach considers the life & work of the poet & playwright Joan Ure (1918–1978) – born #OTD, 22 June
1/6
#Scottish #literature #poetry #poet #drama #playwright #20thcentury #womenwriters
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
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
1/3
#Scottish #literature #poetry #medieval #14thcentury #history #MiddleAges #Bannockburn #epic #vernacular #poem #Scots #Scotslanguage
"A Deeper Sky", a collection of my longer (not haiku / senryu) poems, up to the end of 2024, is available on Amazon and Rakuten Kobo. Paperback, hardcover and e-reader. If interested in a signed copy, DM me to discuss.
amazon .com link:
https://tinyurl.com/DeeperSkyAmazon
For Amazon UK link, see my author homepage:
https://tinyurl.com/fc3njxup
Kobo link:
https://tinyurl.com/DeeperSkyKobo
Boosts appreciated.
#indie #author #SJAshcroftsPoems #poems #poetry #PoetryCommunity #MyWordsMyWork
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
The Man He Killed
by Thomas Hardy
Books by Thomas Hardy at PG:
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)
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
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
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
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
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
1/4
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #RobertBurns #18thcentury #romanticism #epitaph
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
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
[To Sheila Lanyon, on the Flyleaf of a Book]
W. S. Graham
Inscribed by the author on the flyleaf of a copy of THE WHITE THRESHOLD belonging to Sheila Lanyon, widow of the late painter Peter Lanyon. The poem is dated June 18, 1966 and the “second summer” referred to is the second since Peter’s death, after a gliding accident, on August 31, 1964.
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
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
Did Shakespeare Write Hamlet While He Was Stoned?
"Sam Kelly Explores the Potential Influence of Cannabis on the Bard’s Prolific Literary Output"
https://lithub.com/did-shakespeare-write-hamlet-while-he-was-stoned/
Shakespeare at PG
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
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #Pride #PrideDay #InternationalPrideDay #LGBTQ
Queerness in Scotland has always existed, hidden in medieval manuscripts, coded in Jacobite poetry, or expressed through the arts. In the first of a 3-part series, the National Galleries of Scotland explores queer artforms & artists from Scotland, past & present
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKBCxUmPBho
#Scottish #literature #poetry #art #manuscripts #medieval #18thcentury #history #jacobites #queerhistory #queerness #Pride #PrideDay #InternationalPrideDay #LGBTQ
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)
1/2
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/speaking-scotland/
The Orphic Hymns are a collection of 87 hymns in ancient Greek, addressed to various deities.
Attributed in antiquity to the mythical poet Orpheus, they were composed in Asia Minor, most likely around the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD, and seem to have belonged to a cult community which used them in ritual. The collection is preceded by a proem in which Orpheus addresses the legendary poet Musaeus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphic_Hymns
Greek Mythology in Literature at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/17235
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
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
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
![[To Sheila Lanyon, on the Flyleaf of a Book]
by W. S. Graham
Sheila, we speak here on the fly
Leaf of a book which was myself
A good few graves ago.
Now I am maintained by other
Words for better or for worse
To whisper my hello.
The seasons turn. Threshold on thresh
Hold forms continually and falls
Under grief’s lonely hammer.
What did you say? I thought between
These fly leaf words I heard you speak
Out of your Second Summer.
The summer chimes and turns its blue
Dragon-flying eyes to see
We two are not afraid.
Hello, Sheila, I can hear
Your breath on the other side of the word
And see you turn your head.](/proxy/post_attachment/772057/ca5f5c2a8d.jpg "[To Sheila Lanyon, on the Flyleaf of a Book]
by W. S. Graham
Sheila, we speak here on the fly
Leaf of a book which was myself
A good few graves ago.
Now I am maintained by other
Words for better or for worse
To whisper my hello.
The seasons turn. Threshold on thresh
Hold forms continually and falls
Under grief’s lonely hammer.
What did you say? I thought between
These fly leaf words I heard you speak
Out of your Second Summer.
The summer chimes and turns its blue
Dragon-flying eyes to see
We two are not afraid.
Hello, Sheila, I can hear
Your breath on the other side of the word
And see you turn your head.")
