Eggplant.place

59d

A huddle on the greasy street –
cars stop, nose past, withdraw –
dull glint on soles of tackety boots,
frayed rough blue trousers, nondescript coat
stretching back, head supported
in strangers’ arms…

—Edwin Morgan, “Death in Duke Street”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #EdwinMorgn #Glasgow

Death in Duke Street
by Edwin Morgan

A huddle on the greasy street –
cars stop, nose past, withdraw –
dull glint on soles of tackety boots,
frayed rough blue trousers, nondescript coat
stretching back, head supported
in strangers’ arms, a crowd collecting –
‘Whit’s wrang?’ ‘Can ye see’m?’
‘An auld fella, he’s had it.’
On one side, a young mother in a headscarf
is kneeling to comfort him, her three-year-old son
stands puzzled, touching her coat, her shopping-bag
spills its packages that people look at
as they look at everything. On the other side
a youth, nervous, awkwardly now
at the centre of attention as he shifts his arm
on the old man’s shoulders, wondering
what to say to him, glancing up at the crowd.
These were next to him when he fell,
and must support him into death.
He seems not to be in pain,
he is speaking slowly and quietly
but he does not look at any of them,
his eyes are fixed on the sky,
already he is moving out
beyond everything belonging.
As if he still belonged
they hold him very tight.

Only the hungry ambulance
howls for him through the staring squares.

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59d

You thought you’re picking. Think again.

A typeset poem that finds oracle, church and delay already sitting in one mushroom’s names — Cortinarius, the birch webcap.

Read the poem and the mycological note:
https://foloton.com/@m-benders/cortinarius

Which turn stays with you after the wood?

@poetry @bookstodon @nature

#poetry #mycology #bookstodon

Cream Foloton page of the poem “Cortinarius” by Martijn Benders, dated 12 September 2026. The typeset verse begins “It’s courting your life” and ends “leaving your ghost belted behind,” framed by aldus leaves, with the credit FOLOTON.COM at the foot.

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59d

The glitter of water and the wake…
Heading for University in Aberdeen.
It’s an autumn morning. I am seventeen…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Aberdeen University 1945–49 (1)”
published in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS, ed. by John Greening (Carcanet, 2021)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Aberdeen #university #leavinghome #student #students

Aberdeen University 1945–49 (1)
by Iain Crichton Smith

The glitter of water and the wake…
Heading for University in Aberdeen.
It’s an autumn morning. I am seventeen.
Above the Isle of Skye the dawn’s a flag

of red infuriate ore. I see the train
for the first time ever steaming from the Kyle
beyond the screaming seagulls, in the smell
of salt and herring. There’s a tall sad crane.

The landscape, rich, harmonious, unwinds
its perfect symmetry: not the barren stone
and vague frail fences I have always known.
I hold my Homer steady in my hand.

All day we travel and at last dismount
at the busy station of that sparkling town.
A beggar with black glasses sitting down
on the hard stone holds out his cap. I count

the pennies in it. Should I freely give?
Or being more shameful than himself refrain?
His definite shadow is the day’s black stain.
How in such open weakness learn to live?

I turn away, the money in my hand,
profusely sweating, in that granite blaze.
Unknown, unlooked at, I pick up my case.
Everything’s glittering and transient.

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59d

Thou hast my kith and kin;
My childhood, youth, and manhood brave;
Thou hast that unforgotten grave
Within thy central din.
A sacredness of love and death
Dwells in thy noise and smoky breath.

—“Glasgow”, by Alexander Smith (1829–1867)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #19thcentury #Victorian #Glasgow

Glasgow
Alexander Smith

Sing, Poet, ’tis a merry world;
That cottage smoke is rolled and curled
In sport, that every moss
Is happy, every inch of soil;—
Before me runs a road of toil
With my grave cut across.
Sing, trailing showers and breezy downs—
I know the tragic hearts of towns.

City! I am true son of thine;
Ne’er dwelt I where great mornings shine
Around the bleating pens;
Ne’er by the rivulets I strayed,
And ne’er upon my childhood weighed
The silence of the glens.
Instead of shores where ocean beats,
I hear the ebb and flow of streets. . . .

Afar, one summer, I was borne;
Through golden vapours of the morn,
I heard the hills of sheep:
I trod with a wild ecstasy
The bright fringe of the living sea:
And on a ruined keep
I sat, and watched an endless plain
Blacken beneath the gloom of rain.

O fair the lightly sprinkled waste,
O’er which a laughing shower has raced!
O fair the April shoots!
O fair the woods on summer days,
While a blue hyacinthine haze
Is dreaming round the roots!
In thee, O city! I discern
Another beauty, sad and stern.

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Draw thy fierce streams of blinding ore,
Smite on a thousand anvils, roar
Down to the harbour-bars;
Smoulder in smoky sunsets, flare
On rainy nights, while street and square
Lie empty to the stars.
From terrace proud to alley base,
I know thee as my mother’s face.

When sunset bathes thee in his gold,
In wreaths of bronze thy sides are rolled,
Thy smoke is dusty fire;
And from the glory round thee poured,
A sunbeam like an angel’s sword
Shivers upon a spire.
Thus have I watched thee, Terror! Dream!
While the blue Night crept up the stream . . .

But all these sights and sounds are strange;
Then wherefore from thee should I range?
Thou hast my kith and kin;
My childhood, youth, and manhood brave;
Thou hast that unforgotten grave
Within thy central din.
A sacredness of love and death
Dwells in thy noise and smoky breath.

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191d

This Week in Literary History: Edna St. Vincent Millay Loses Her Manuscript in a Hotel Fire

Did She Ever Truly Recover?

https://lithub.com/this-week-in-literary-history-edna-st-vincent-millay-loses-her-manuscript-in-a-hotel-fire/

Her works at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/70

#books #literature #poetry

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205d

Meaning beyond definition

In science our concepts have neat, hard edges. In poetry our concepts stretch and expand. Both are necessary for knowledge

by James Camien McGuiggan

https://aeon.co/essays/in-poetry-clarity-comes-through-ambiguity-not-definitions?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=765c91975b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_04_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-4ef8a26106-72664972

Poetry & Knowledge at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=poetry+%2B+knowledge

#books #literature #poetry #knowledge

Transcription:

003—La cravate et la montre

[cravate]

la cravate douloureuse que tu portes et qui t'orne ô civilisé ôte-la
si tu veux bien respirer
[montre, remontoir]

comme l'on s'amuse bien
[bord droit de la montre]

la beauté de la vie passe la douleur de mourir
[heures]

mon cœur
les yeux
l'enfant
Agla
la main
Tircis
semaine
l'infini redressé par un fous de philosophe
les Muses aux portes de ton corps
le bel inconnu
et le vers dantesque luisant et cadavérique
les heures
[aiguilles]

Il est – 5
Et tout sera fini

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/55569/pg55569-images.html

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1y

"Prose is a museum, where all the old weapons of poetry are kept."

In January 1909.

T. E. Hulme's poems "Autumn" and "A City Sunset" are included in the Poets' Club anthology For Christmas MDCCCCVIII, as the first examples of Imagism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Hulme

Canzoni & Ripostes at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39783

#books #literature #poetry

T.E. Hulme in 1912.

Hulme is shown in formal attire, such as a suit, with neatly combed hair.

His expression is typically stern or contemplative, aligning with his reputation as a rigorous thinker and a key figure in early modernist movements, particularly Imagism.

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1y

"Poet, never chase the dream.
Laugh yourself and turn away.
Mask your hunger, let it seem
Small matter if he come or stay;..."

#OTD in 1918.

The English poet Robert Graves marries the painter Nancy Nicholson in London. The wedding guests include Wilfred Owen, whose first nationally published poem appears three days later ("Miners" in The Nation). He will die by the end of the year.

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

Robert Graves at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/628

#books #literature #poetry

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Edited 1y ago

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1y

"And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted — nevermore!"

#OTD in 1845.

Edgar Allan Poe first publishes the narrative poem "The Raven", under his own name in The Evening Mirror of New York, of which he is a staff critic until February. It is rapidly reprinted across the United States and appears in book form by the end of the year.

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

The Raven at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/14082
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/17192

#books #literature #poetry

The raven perches on a bust of Pallas Athena, a symbol of wisdom meant to imply the narrator is a scholar.

Illustration by Édouard Manet for Stéphane Mallarmé's translation, Le Corbeau (1875).

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293d

chats in squirrel are limited
to a sort of Roman salute
foreleg extended then folded
open paw on breast as if to say
Look I take you in my open paw
and hold you to my heart
then it gets tricky…

—William Bonar, “SQRL”
published in OFFERING (Red Squirrel Press, 2015)

Happy #SquirrelAppreciationDay 🐿️ – 21 January – to all who celebrate

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #squirrel #squirrels #SquirrelAppreciationDay

SQRL
by William Bonar

chats in squirrel are limited
to a sort of Roman salute
foreleg extended then folded
open paw on breast as if to say
Look‍‍‍‍‍‍ I take you in my open paw
and hold you to my heart
then it gets tricky

the erect position fosters
rhetorical expansiveness

one paw clutches
the purple edge
of a senatorial toga
while the other describes
a democratic arc
enfolding all squirrels
to its furry bosom

Nuts it declaims
Nuts nuts nuts

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293d

Around #BurnsNight our website is the most popular poetry website in the world. 100,000+ hits on Address To A Haggis page alone. (Extra bandwidth required).

Our website has resources for anyone planning a #haggis #whisky #poetry happening + much more.

www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/burns-night/

Robert Burns painted in a modernist style by Greg Moodie

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293d

Voices from the Archives: Mary, Burns & Lochhead
29 Jan, Perth. Tickets £8.50/£6

A panel discussion examining 3 manuscripts, each offering a powerful lens on Mary, Queen of Scots:

📜 her final letter, written just hours before her execution
🪶 Robert Burns' poetic tribute “Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots”
⌨️ Liz Lochhead's bold reimagining in her play Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off

https://www.perthshireboxoffice.com/whats-on/voices-from-the-archives-mary-burns-and-lochhead

#Scottish #literature #history #MaryQueenofScots #poetry #drama

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59d

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

“Question & Answer”, by James Findlay Hendry (1912–1986) – born #OTD, 12 September

With G.S. Fraser & Henry Treece, author, poet & translator J.F. Hendry was a contributor to the “New Apocalypse” poetic movement of the 1930s

1/2

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #warpoem #warpoetry #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.

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256d

Thon tree,
earthfast at the foot
of your Alpine meadow,

dark, with mossy branches,
– apple perhaps –

can you give it a message?
Can you please say spring
will be there soon?

—Kathleen Jamie, “Old Women”
published in THE BONNIEST COMPANIE (Picador, 2015)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #spring

Kathleen Jamie
Old Women

Thon tree,
earthfast at the foot
of your Alpine meadow,

dark, with mossy branches,
– apple perhaps –

can you give it a message?
Can you please say spring
will be there soon?

It’s creeping up the mountain
as though carried on an old woman’s back.

When we’re old women
we will fetch spring too.

You know the tree I mean.

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291d

StAnza 2026
13–15 March, St Andrews & online

Tickets are on sale for StAnza 2026, Scotland’s award-winning poetry festival dedicated to bringing poetry in all its forms & many languages to audiences around the world

https://stanzapoetry.org/festival/stanza-2026/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #festivals #StAndrews

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1y

#OTD in 1922.

In a "savage creative storm" of less than three weeks beginning today at Château de Muzot in Switzerland, Rainer Maria Rilke writes his Sonnets to Orpheus (Die Sonette an Orpheus) and completes his Duino Elegies (Duineser Elegien).

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

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

Books by Rainer Maria Rilke at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/846

#books #literature #poetry

First edition book cover of Sonette an Orpheus (Sonnets to Orpheus) (1923) by Rainer Maria Rilke.

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Cover of Rainer Maria Rilke's Duineser Elegien (1923)

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1y

"I know that Beauty must ail and die,
And will be born again, — but ah, to see
Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky!
Oh, Autumn! Autumn! — What is the Spring to me?"

Second April (1921)

~Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950)

Books by Edna St. Vincent Millay at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/70

#books #literature #poetry

Millay, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1933.

She is captured in a three-quarter view, looking slightly to the side with an introspective expression.

Dramatic high-contrast lighting, with strong shadows cast across her face, emphasizing depth and mood.

Millay wears a dark jacket over a patterned blouse, with a deep neckline revealing her collarbone.

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292d

But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred
A whole one, and my heart flies to my head,—

—from “Don Juan”, Canto X, by George Gordon, Lord Byron

The great Romantic poet George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron – Lord Byron – was born #OTD, 22 Jan, 1788

A 🎂 🧵

1/5

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Byron #LordByron #romantic #romanticism #18thcentury #19thcentury

from “Don Juan”, Canto X
George Gordon Byron

And all our little feuds, at least all mine,
Dear Jefferson, once my most redoubted foe
(As far as rhyme and criticism combine
To make such puppets of us things below),
Are over: Here's a health to 'Auld Lang Syne!'
I do not know you, and may never know
Your face—but you have acted on the whole
Most nobly, and I own it from my soul.

And when I use the phrase of 'Auld Lang Syne!'
'Tis not address'd to you—the more's the pity
For me, for I would rather take my wine
With you, than aught (save Scott) in your proud city.
But somehow,—it may seem a schoolboy's whine,
And yet I seek not to be grand nor witty,
But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred
A whole one, and my heart flies to my head,—

As 'Auld Lang Syne' brings Scotland, one and all,
Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear streams,
The Dee, the Don, Balgounie's brig's black wall,
All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams
Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their own pall,
Like Banquo's offspring;—floating past me seems
My childhood in this childishness of mine:
I care not—'t is a glimpse of 'Auld Lang Syne.'

And though, as you remember, in a fit
Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly,
I rail'd at Scots to show my wrath and wit,
Which must be own'd was sensitive and surly,
Yet 'tis in vain such sallies to permit,
They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early:
I 'scotch'd not kill'd' the Scotchman in my blood,
And love the land of 'mountain and of flood.'

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291d

Gin I was God, sittin’ up there abeen,
Weariet nae doot noo a’ my darg was deen,
Deaved wi’ the harps an’ hymns oonendin’ ringin’,
Tired o’ the flockin’ angels hairse wi’ singin’,
To some clood-edge I’d daunder furth an’, feth,
Look ower an’ watch hoo things were gyaun aneth…

—Charles Murray (1864–1941), “Gin I Was God”
published in THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF SCOTTISH VERSE, @canongatebooks 2021

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #Scots #Scotslanguage #god

Gin I Was God
Charles Murray

Gin I was God, sittin’ up there abeen,
Weariet nae doot noo a’ my darg was deen,
Deaved wi’ the harps an’ hymns oonendin’ ringin’,
Tired o’ the flockin’ angels hairse wi’ singin’,
To some clood-edge I’d daunder furth an’, feth,
Look ower an’ watch hoo things were gyaun aneth.
Syne, gin I saw hoo men I’d made mysel’
Had startit in to pooshan, sheet an’ fell,
To reive an’ rape, an’ fairly mak’ a hell
O’ my braw birlin’ Earth, – a hale week’s wark –
I’d cast my coat again, rowe up my sark,
An’, or they’d time to lench a second ark,
Tak’ bak my word an’ sen’ anither spate,
Droon oot the hale hypothec, dicht the sklate,
Own my mistak’, an’, aince I’d cleared the brod,
Start a’thing ower again, gin I was God.

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58d

THE CITY IS WILDER THAN YOU THINK
AND KINDER THAN YOU THINK. IT IS A
VALLEY AND YOU ARE A HORSE IN IT
IT IS A HOUSE AND YOU ARE A
CHILD IN IT SAFE AND WARM HERE
IN THE FIRE OF EACH OTHER

—Robert Montgomery, Light Poem (recycled sunlight)

https://www.robertmontgomery.org/recycledsunlightpoems

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #visualart #artpoetry #cities

A shop window in a city at night. The building is quite old, and there are drainpipes and cables coming down either side of the shop window. There's a flat above the shop, and there's a light on in one window. There are red, old-fashioned wrought-iron railings outside the shop window. The shop door says "WELCOME TO KK" and there's a sign reading "Sorry we're OPEN".

Above the shop window is a set of lights spelling out letters, set in front of a heart and under an arch of stars. The letters read

THE CITY IS WILDER THAN YOU THINK
AND KINDER THAN YOU THINK. IT IS A
VALLEY AND YOU ARE A HORSE IN IT
IT IS A HOUSE AND YOU ARE A
CHILD IN IT SAFE AND WARM HERE
IN THE FIRE OF EACH OTHER

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291d

One drops
in a bunker,
another on his doorstep,
Christmas morning, shovelling snow…

—Andrew Greig, “Norman’s Goodnight”
from This Life, This Life: New & Selected Poems 1976–2006 (Bloodaxe Books, 2006

Norman MacCaig (1910–1996) died #OTD, 23 Jan

https://poetryarchive.org/poem/normans-goodnight/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #NormanMacCaig

Norman’s Goodnight
by Andrew Greig

One drops
in a bunker,
another on his doorstep,
Christmas morning, shovelling snow.

When I go
may it be like that,
a short fall down and out
while busy in open air –

like a pigeon, say,
winging it across clear sky,
sways then plummets,
brought down by stray buckshot.

And may there be time
to murmur as I fold
some word of thanks
and letting go –

like the last time I saw MacCaig
standing at his door;
as I turned the stair
his hand came up, waved:

Ta-ta. Ta-ta.
Masterly concision –
‘Thank you’ and
‘Goodnight’ in one.

I hope to be
even briefer as I fall:

Ta –

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288d

Grant me, indulgent Heaven, that I may live,
To see the miscreants feel the pains they give;
Deal Freedom’s sacred treasures free as air,
Till Slave and Despot be but things that were.

—Robert Burns, “Lines Inscribed in a Lady’s Pocket Almanac”

#Scottish #literature #RobertBurns #BurnsNight #poem #poetry #18thcentury #liberty #justice #freedom

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205d

Quintessential Romantic Lord Byron – “half a Scot by birth, and bred / a whole one” – died #OTD, 19 April, 1824

Byron included this #poem in a letter to Thomas Moore from Venice in 1817, when Byron was feeling particularly shagged out after Carnevale…

1/4

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43845/so-well-go-no-more-a-roving

#Scottish #literature #Byron #LordByron #romanticism #poem #poetry #19thCentury

So we’ll go no more a-roving
George Gordon, Lord Byron

So we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we’ll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.

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188d

Standard ebooks Fundraising Campaign

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290d

Atween November’s end and noo
there’s really nithin else tae do
but climb inside a brindlet coo
and dream o Spring,
fur Winter’s decked hur breist and broo
wi icy bling…

—W.N. Herbert, “Rabbie, Rabbie, Burning Bright”
published in OMNESIA (Remix) (Bloodaxe Books, 2013)

Warming up for Burns Night …

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/rabbie-rabbie-burning-bright/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #RobertBurns #BurnsNight #StandardHabbie #winter