Eggplant.place

119d

I cling to
The limbs
Of starlight
Knowing
Gravity is a
Weak force,
But love
Moves us
By falling.

#poetry

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1y

An lùib na droighne
anns an dris-choille
tha meas an fhoghair
toradh mo ghràidh…

—Niall O’Gallagher, “Crindreas”

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

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

Crindreas
Niall O’Gallagher

An lùib na droighne
anns an dris-choille
tha meas an fhoghair
toradh mo ghràidh

is dealt na maidne
a’ fàgail taise
a’ gleansadh air a
craiceann làn.

Tha brìgh na deirce
mìlse nas seirbhe
na gèire deilge
a’ stailceadh làimh’

ach dh’aindeoin bhioran
bu mhi a spioladh
is le mo bhilean
bhlaisinn àgh.

ALT

Bramble
Niall O’Gallagher

Translated by Deborah Moffatt

Amongst the thorns
in the thicket of brambles,
the autumn berry
is my heart’s desire,

the damp sheen
of the morning dew
gleaming bright on
its full ripe skin.

The sap of the sweet berry
is sharper than the thorn
that pierces the thin skin
of the plundering hand,

but I would pick my fill,
in spite of the pricks
that my lips might taste
the glory of the bramble.

ALT

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1y

Page Against the Machine: On the Poetics of AI Refusal

Pip Thornton documents and debates some of the outputs of ‘Writing the Wrongs of AI’, a project which explored creative ways to demonstrate the power that human words, poetics and writing might have in resisting the influence of artificial intelligence in the literary sphere and beyond.

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/2025/09/page-against-the-machine-on-the-poetics-of-ai-refusal/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #AI #genAI #generativeAI

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332d

We fecht to lowse oursels, we coup and skar
and joater menseless in the foazie grun,
feart to bide still, and fusionless to rin,
we plouter on, forfeuchan, through the haar…

—Robert Garioch, “The Bog”
published in A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS (ASL, 2017)

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

#Scottish #literature #Scotstober #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage

Robert Garioch
The Bog

The lyft is lourd abuin the hechs and howes,
peat-bog and mist hae left nae space atween;
the puddock cours doun frae the wecht abuin,
here is nae leevin-space for men or yowes.

We fecht to lowse oursels, we coup and skar
and joater menseless in the foazie grun,
feart to bide still, and fusionless to rin,
we plouter on, forfeuchan, through the haar.

We rax doun, seeking rock, wi feet grown nesh
frae clatchin in thae never-ending clarts,
ettlin to traipse on stanes, to thole their scarts,
and win to some green haugh, kind to the flesh.

Tho weill we ken it's aye the same auld place,
we fuil oursels to pech and plouter on
frae this black oily puddle-hole to thon,
that gies the meisor of our hirple-pace.

Our thochts are aye on skinklan burns, dour rocks,
clean waters we cuid loup frae stane to stane,
bricht in the sun or weet wi dounricht rain,
dazzlit wi licht and stoun'd by solid shocks.

But maist we think of gangin ither airts,
whaur we micht hae faur distances in sicht,
think lang to traivel til a warld of bricht
pure colour in outlandish foreign pairts.

Sae we jalouse some howff juist owre the brae,
some hevin abuin the sterns, juist out of sicht,
whaur we cuid gae the morn, gin we micht
loup owre the muin, as did the famous quey.

Wanting some yirdlie hevin for Almains,
the Fuhrer maks a furore in our lugs;
we bield in ivory touers or Luftwaffe-skugs,
while bummlan boomers threaten broken banes.

ALT

Thae men that fetch us boombs frae yont the seas,
heich in their Heinkels, ken the same despair;
they maun skite flat-out on the slidder air,
forever doomed, like us, to future ease.

Nou the impassioned banshees, in F-moll,
screich out wi siren voices, anger-riven,
Beethoven's chord of Opus 57,
the same that skeiched us in the Usher Hall.

The causey street we staund on shaks and shogs,
freestane fore-storey housses flee in air;
real super-realism everywhere
maks grand pianos mate wi clarty bogs.

The bog—I ken the feel o't weill eneuch,
tak its conditions, staund and dinnae fecht
to lowse my feet, and find it tholes my wecht
ablow the haar, gin but my heid be leugh.

And here are colours braw as onie shroud:
broun and dark broun, black and mair black, an aa
the fud or hint-end of the watergaw,
whaur I hae fand my forpit-met of gowd.

ALT

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1y

This far north, the harvest happens late.
Rooks go clattering over the sycamores
whose shadows yawn after them, down to the river.
Uncut wheat staggers under its own weight…

—Dorothy Lawrenson, “September”
Published in Painted, spoken 22

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #September

September
Dorothy Lawrenson

This far north, the harvest happens late.
Rooks go clattering over the sycamores
whose shadows yawn after them, down to the river.
Uncut wheat staggers under its own weight.

Summer is leaving too, exchanging its gold
for brass and copper. It is not so strange
to feel nostalgia for the present; already
this September evening is as old

as a photograph of itself. The light, the shadows
on the field, are sepia, as if this were
some other evening in September, some other
harvest that went ungathered years ago.

ALT

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1y

The mile-high buildings flashed, flushed, greyed, went dark,
greyed, flushed, flashed, chameleons under flak
of cloud and sun…

—Edwin Morgan, “Clydegrad”
CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, Carcanet 2020

Today, 3 September, is Skyscraper Day

1/2

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

#Scottish #literature #Glasgow #poem #poetry #ConcretePoetry #Skyscraper #SkyscraperDay

Clydegrad
Edwin Morgan

It was so fine we lingered there for hours.
The long broad streets shone strongly after rain.
Sunset blinded the tremble of the crane
we watched from, dazed the heliport-towers.
The mile-high buildings flashed, flushed, greyed, went dark,
greyed, flushed, flashed, chameleons under flak
of cloud and sun. The last far thunder-sack
ripped and spilled its grumble. Ziggurat-stark,
a power-house reflected in the lead
of the old twilight river leapt alive
lit up at every window, and a boat
of students rowed past, slid from black to red
into the blaze. But where will they arrive
with all, boat, city, earth, like them, afloat?

ALT

Book cover

EDWIN MORGAN
CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS

edited by
HAMISH WHYTE

Carcanet Classics

The cover image shows a view looking up the face of a concrete tower block, angled against a star-strewn sky – as if the skyscraper was a starship, cruising the cosmos.

ALT

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279d

Intil the pitmirk nicht we northwart sail
Facin the bleffarts and the gurly seas
That ser’ out muckle skaith to mortal men…

—J.K. Annand (1908–1993), “Arctic Convoy”
published in FROM THE LINE: Scottish War Poetry 1914–1945 (ASL, 2014)

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

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #poem #poetry #warpoetry #ww2 #arctic

Arctic Convoy
J. K. Annand

Intil the pitmirk nicht we northwart sail
Facin the bleffarts and the gurly seas
That ser’ out muckle skaith to mortal men.
Whummlin about like a waukrife feverit bairn
The gude ship snowks the waters o a wave.
Swithers, syne pokes her neb intil the air,
Hings for a wee thing, dinnlin, on the crest,
And clatters in the trouch wi sic a dunt
As gey near rives the platin frae her ribs
And flypes the tripes o unsuspectin man.

Northwart, aye northwart, in the pitmirk nicht.
A nirlin wind comes blawin frae the ice,
Plays dirdum throu the rails and shrouds and riggin,
Ruggin at bodies clawin at the life-lines.
There’s sic a rowth o air that neb and lungs
Juist canna cope wi sic a dirlin onding.

Caulder the air becomes, and snell the wind.
The waters, splairgin as she dunts her boo,
Blads in a blatter o hailstanes on the brig
And geals on guns and turrets, masts and spars,
Cleedin the iron and steel wi coat o ice.

Northwart, aye northwart, in the pitmirk nicht.
The nirlin wind has gane, a lownness comes;
The lang slaw swall still minds us o the gale.
Restin aft-watch, a-sweein in our hammocks,
We watch our sleepin messmates’ fozy braith
Transmogrify to ice upon the skin
That growes aye thicker on the ship-side plates.

ALT

Nae mair we hear the lipper o the water,
Only the dunsh o ice-floes scruntin by;
Floes that in the noon-day gloamin licht
Are lily leafs upon my lochan dubh.
But nae bricht lily-flouers delytes the ee,
Nae divin bird diverts amang the leafs,
Nae sea-bird to convoy us on our gait.

In ilka deid-lown airt smools Davy Jones,
Ice-tangle marline spikes o fingers gleg
To claught the bodies o unwary sailors
And hike them doun to stap intil his kist.
Whiles ‘Arctic reek’ taks on the orra shapes
O ghaistly ships-o-war athort our gait,
Garrin us rin ram-stam to action stations
Then see them melt awa intil the air.

Owre lang this trauchle lasts throu seas o daith,
Wi ne’er a sign o welcome at the port,
Nae ‘Libertymen fall in!’ to cheer our herts,
But sullen sentries at the jetty-heid
And leesome-lanesome waitin at our birth.

At length we turn about and sail for hame,
Back through rouch seas, throu ice and snaw and sleet,
Hirdin the draigelt remnant o our flock
Bieldin them weel frae skaith o enemie.
But southwart noo we airt intil the licht
Leavin the perils o the Arctic nicht.

ALT

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2y

English author, poet, and gardener Vita Sackville-West was born #OTD in 1892.

She published more than a dozen collections of poetry and 13 novels during her life. She was twice awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Imaginative Literature: in 1927 for her pastoral epic, The Land, & in 1933 for her Collected Poems. She was the inspiration for the protagonist of Orlando: A Biography, by her friend & lover Virginia Woolf.

Vita Sackville-West at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/34850

#books #literature #poetry

Sackville-West around 1915, from The Life of V.Sackville-West by Victoria Glendinning

ALT

Cover page of Knole and the Sackvilles by V. Sackville-West

ALT

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360d

I gaed to spend a week in Fife—
An unco week it proved to be—
For there I met a waesome wife
Lamentin’ her viduity.
Her grief brak out sae fierce and fell,
I thought her heart wad burst the shell,
And,—I was sae left tae mysel,—
I sell’t her an annuity…

—“The Annuity” by George Outram (1805–1856)

Today, 15 September, is Pensions Awareness Day. Tak tent!

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #humor #pension #pensions

The Annuity
George Outram

I gaed to spend a week in Fife—
An unco week it proved to be—
For there I met a waesome wife
Lamentin’ her viduity.
Her grief brak out sae fierce and fell,
I thought her heart wad burst the shell,
And,—I was sae left tae mysel,—
I sell’t her an annuity.

The bargain lookit fair eneugh—
She just was turned o’ saxty-three—
I couldna guessed she’d prove sae teugh,
By human ingenuity.
But years have come, and years have gane,
And there she’s yet as stieve ’s a stane—
The limmer’s growin’ young again,
Since she got her annuity.

She’s crined awa’ to bane and skin,
But that, it seems, is naught to me;
She’s like to live—although she’s in
The last stage o’ tenuity.
She munches wi’ her wizened gums,
An’ stumps about on legs o’ thrums;
But comes—as sure as Christmas comes—
To ca’ for her annuity.

She jokes her joke, an’ cracks her crack,
As spunkie as a growin’ flea—
An’ there she sits upon my back,
A livin’ perpetuity.
She hurkles by her ingle side,
An’ toasts an’ toasts her wrunkled hide—
Lord kens how lang she yet may bide
To ca’ for her annuity.

I read the tables drawn wi’ care
For an Insurance Company;
Her chance o’ life was stated there,
Wi’ perfect perspicuity.
But tables here or tables there,
She’s lived ten years beyond her share,
An’s like to live a dizzen mair,
To ca’ for her annuity.

ALT

$I got the loun that drew the deed— We spelled it o’er right carefully;— In vain he yerked his souple heid, To find an ambiguity: It’s dated—tested—a’ complete— The proper stamp—nae word delete— And diligence, as on decreet, May pass for her annuity. Last Yule she had a fearfu’ hoast,— I thought a kink might set me free; I led her out, ’mang snaw and frost, Wi’ constant assiduity. But deil ma’ care—the blast gaed by, And missed the auld anatomy; It just cost me a tooth, forbye Discharging her annuity. I thought that grief might gar her quit— Her only son was lost at sea— But aff her wits behoved to flit, An’ leave her in fatuity! She threeps, an’ threeps, he’s livin’ yet, For a’ the tellin’ she can get; But catch the doited runt forget To ca’ for her annuity! If there’s a sough o’ cholera, Or typhus,—wha sae gleg as she? She buys up baths, an’ drugs, an’ a’, In siccan superfluity! She doesna need—she’s fever proof— The pest gaed owre her very roof— She tauld me sae—an’ then her loof Held out for her annuity. Ae day she fell, her arm she brak— A compound fracture as could be— Nae leech the cure wad undertak, Whate’er was the gratuity. It’s cured! She handles ’t like a flail— It does as weel in bits as hale— But I’m a broken man mysel Wi’ her and her annuity.$

ALT

Her broozled flesh and broken banes
Are weel as flesh and banes can be;
She beats the tades that live in stanes,
An’ fatten in vacuity!
They die when they’re exposed to air—
They canna thole the atmosphere—
But her!—expose her onywhere—
She lives for her annuity.

If mortal means could nick her thread,
Sma’ crime it wad appear to me—
Ca’ t murder—or ca’ t homicide—
I’d justify ’t—an’ do it tae.
But how to fell a withered wife
That’s carved out o’ the tree of life—
The timmer limmer dares the knife
To settle her annuity.

I’d try a shot—but whar’s the mark?—
Her vital parts are hid frae me;
Her back-bane wanders through her sark
In an unkenned corkscrewity.
She’s palsified, an’ shakes her head
Sae fast about, ye scarce can see ’t—
It’s past the power o’ steel or lead
To settle her annuity.

She might be drowned;—but go she’ll not
Within a mile o’ loch or sea;
Or hanged—if cord could grip a throat
O’ siccan exiguity.
It’s fitter far to hang the rope—
It draws out like a telescope—
’Twad tak’ a dreadfu’ length o’ drop
To settle her annuity.

Will poison do ’t?—It has been tried.
But, be’t in hash or fricassee,
That’s just the dish she can’t abide,
Whatever kind o’ goût it hae.
It’s needless to assail her doubts,—
She gangs by instinct—like the brutes,—
An’ only eats an’ drinks what suits
Hersel an’ her annuity.

ALT

The Bible says the age o’ man
Threescore and ten, perchance, may be;
She’s ninety-four—Let them wha can
Explain the incongruity.
She should hae lived afore the flood—
She’s come o’ patriarchal blood—
She’s some auld Pagan, mummified
Alive for her annuity.

She’s been embalmed inside and oot—
She’s sauted to the last degree—
There’s pickle in her very snoot
Sae caper-like an’ cruety.
Lot’s wife was fresh compared to her—
They’ve kyanized the useless knir,—
She canna decompose—nae mair
Than her accursed annuity.

The water-drap wears out the rock,
As this eternal jaud wears me;
I could withstand the single shock,
But not the continuity.
It’s pay me here, an’ pay me there—
An’ pay me, pay me, evermair—
I’ll gang demented wi’ despair—
I’m charged for her annuity!

ALT

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1y

He moves the way light moves: now sudden,
racing up a field as sun clears cloud…

—Sheenagh Pugh, “Him Again”
Published in A Little Touch of Cliff in the Evening: New Writing Scotland 30 (ASL, 2012)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

HIM AGAIN
Sheenagh Pugh

He moves the way light moves: now sudden,
racing up a field as sun clears cloud,

now unnoticed, leaching from the world
until you look up into dark.

And he inhabits next door's peat stack,
waiting for winter, and the fat sheep

ready for the show, and the gap
in the window of what was a house

and is a shed, and soon will be out of use.
The berries that were once white blossom

on the brambles belong to him,
so they say, and lose all their taste

on a certain day, when he comes to harvest
what is alive, and ripe, and his own.

ALT

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360d

It’s been a long Indian summer
and the hips are rotting on the beach rose.

I can almost taste their sour skins –
red balls of seeds glistening…

—Marion McCready, “Rose Hips and Thistles”
from MADAME ECOSSE (Eyewear Books, 2017)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/rose-hips-and-thistles/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #autumn #september

Rose Hips and Thistles
by Marion McCready

It’s been a long Indian summer
and the hips are rotting on the beach rose.

I can almost taste their sour skins –
red balls of seeds glistening

like fiery cauldrons in the late September sun;
green tentacles dripping below.

I’m dreaming of exotic gentians,
alpines, delphiniums.

But it’s the last of the flowering thistles
that stand before me

with their decadent helmets and feathers.
I think of Ellen Willmott

secretly scattering thistle seeds
in her neighbours’ gardens,

spreading pieces of herself – a legacy, to grow
and grow again when her body

is lowered to feed the earth
in a last great act of love.

ALT

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1y

“SANGSCHAW… gave other writers permission to push the boundaries of Scots as a language of literature, capable of expressing deep thought and not just for light comedy or mawkish whimsy”

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s first book

https://www.thenational.scot/culture/25436484.100-year-tribute-hugh-macdiarmid-marking-crucial-work/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #20thcentury #MacDiarmid #HughMacDiarmid

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1y

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…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Aberdeen University 1945–49 (1)”
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 #IainCrichtonSmith #Skye #Aberdeen

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.

ALT

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1y

The deid-hole’s a sma-boukit place for you.
You need tae be blawn aboot the cosmos
so’s your live matter mells wi the spaces
and you become the stour starns are made o…

—Alastair Mackie: In Memoriam Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)

Christopher Murray Grieve – Hugh MacDiarmid – died #OTD, 9 September

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #MacDiarmid #HughMacDiarmid

In Memoriam Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)
Alastair Mackie

The deid-hole’s a sma-boukit place for you.
You need tae be blawn aboot the cosmos
so’s your live matter mells wi the spaces
and you become the stour starns are made o.

Sma spirit, ye couped yoursel oot like an ocean
and on it ye sailed tae your odyssey.
Your poems set their bows for the infinite.
It was a sma bit coble made o Scots.

Ahent the muckle brae-face o your brou
barmed the thochts. They were like boolders,
ram-stam, ramgunshoch, aften wilyart. Polyphemus
hurlin craigs at the galleys’ hotterin starns.

And aye the sky-line cockit its fore-finger.
For fifty years laneliness was your crony.
Your spaces were polar anes, the cauld burn
o your mind the aixle-tree that iled your world.

I think o Pascal’s infinite spaces
and Scotland a wee dot in the abyss.
You gied it a starn; the muckle hole skinkles
yet in the licht. Sic matter never dees.

The terror that I feel is for the muckle howe-hole
your last sleep leaves ahent. As if a mountain
that held up the lyft had sunk intae the mools
and suddenly the sky-line’s unfrienly.

And oor steps styter and Scotland’s again
‘the bonny broukit bairn’. Lie back in your kist
licht bearer. And may the giant back-birn
ye cairriet lie lichtly in the earth’s happin.

ALT

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1y

Currently on BBC Sounds: Ian McMillan hosts poets Liz Lochhead, Robert Crawford & Hannah Lavery at the Edinburgh Festival

Hannah Lavery performs “Edinburgh is a Story”; “My Work is Loving the World”; & “Miss Has Started Using Sunbeds”

Robert Crawford reads “Camera Obscura” & “Mons Meg”

Liz Lochhead reads a selection of poems including “Trouble Is Not My Middle Name”; “Coming To Poetry”; & “Song For A Dirty Diva”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002htf2

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Edinburgh

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1y

It's a double book launch!

Mandy Hager and I are launching our new books at 6pm on Wednesday 1 October at Unity Books, Wellington - my new poetry collection "Dracula in the Colonies" and her new novel "Revenge and Rabbit Holes"!

Check out the details here: https://www.timjonesbooks.co.nz/2025/09/04/youre-invited-to-a-double-book-launch-on-wednesday-1-october-dracula-in-the-colonies-by-tim-jones-and-revenge-and-rabbit-holes-by-mandy-hager/

I hope you can come along! Many thanks to The Cuba Press for publishing both books, and to Unity Books Wellington for hosting the launch.

Can't make the launch? You can pre-order Dracula in the Colonies here: https://thecubapress.nz/shop/dracula-in-the-colonies/

#books #bookstodon #nzbooks #Aotearoa #fiction #poetry

Invitation to the launch of "Dracula in the Colonies" by Tim Jones and "Revenge and Rabbit Holes" by Mandy Hager, showing the covers of both books. The launch is at Unity Books, 57 Willis St, Wellington, from 6-7.30pm on Wednesday 1 October 2025.

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Edited 1y ago

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356d

On leaving
you playfully punched
my left
shoulder.

The sensation
remains

But your
voice fades

The sensation
remains
But your
image fades

I
short of breath
tremble

I think
you’ve
cracked
a
rib.

—“Gone but Not Forgotten”, by Maud Sulter (1960–2008)
born #OTD, 19 Sep – a 🎂 🧵

1/9

#Scottish #literature #poem #poet #poetry #photography #MaudSulter #BPOC #Blackwriters #womenwriters #Scotland #Ghana

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355d

So I stopped my walk, climbed the gate
to help an old farmer cursing his deaf god
bringing in the last of a poor harvest…

—Jim Carruth, “Only Human”
published in A Little Touch of Cliff in the Evening: New Writing Scotland 30 (ASL, 2012)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #farming #harvest

Jim Carruth
Only Human

So I stopped my walk, climbed the gate
to help an old farmer cursing his deaf god
bringing in the last of a poor harvest.
He must have been struggling all day
on his own to fill that small trailer.

I cannot make more of this than it was.
I was no passing Samaritan, saving him
minutes at most, nor a reluctant volunteer
some Simon of Cyrene shouldering
the burden of a stranger’s sodden bale.

As for him, this ageing hunch-backed man
he could not raise his head to say thanks
nor straighten his spine to walk like a saint
not even resurrect the past fortnight of rain
into one unblemished day of a risen sun.

ALT

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1y

Seven scythes leaned at the wall.
Beard upon golden beard
The last barley load
Swayed through the yard…

—George Mackay Brown, “Taxman”
Published in CARVE THE RUNES (Polygon, 2021)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/carve-the-runes/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Orkney #GeorgeMackayBrown #rurallife #harvest

Taxman
by George Mackay Brown

Seven scythes leaned at the wall.
Beard upon golden beard
The last barley load
Swayed through the yard.
The girls uncorked the ale.
Fiddle and feet moved together.
Then between stubble and heather
A horseman rode.

ALT

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338d

Every so often I come across a close-up photo of a Jackdaw that reminds me of this verse:

Thrice happy bird! I too have seen
Much of the vanities of men;
And sick of having seen ’em,
Would cheerfully these limbs resign
For such a pair of wings as thine,
And such a head between ’em.

#Poetry #WilliamCowper #birdsoftheworld #birds

A close-up of the head and chest of a Western Jackdaw (Coloeus monedula) by Kevinsphotos via Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/photos/jackdaw-blackbird-bird-animal-2332455/

The head of the Western Jackdaw is highly distinctive, featuring a glossy black cap on the crown and forehead that often exhibits a subtle blue or purple sheen. This dark cap sharply contrasts with the light grey or greyish-silver nape, cheeks, and sides of the neck, which often create a "hood" or "shawl" appearance. Its facial features are completed by a short, stout, black bill and, most notably, bright pale blue-grey or silvery-white irises in the adult, which stare out against the dark facial plumage, serving as a key identification marker. 2.5 Flash (Edited) 😊

ALT

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195d

Creative Conversations: Nicky Melville
2 March, University of Glasgow & online – free

Poet, creative writing teacher, musician & occasional artist nicky (nick-e) melville reading & in conversation. He has been developing a variety of forms and genres: found poetry and erasures, visual poetry, lyric experiment, conceptual & post-conceptual writing, & a badge. His work interrogates the imperatives of capitalism, politics & ideology.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-conversations-nicky-melville-tickets-1977612662710

#Scottish #literature #poetry

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331d

#OTD in 1894 poet and essayist e. e. cummings was born.

"Cummings wrote approximately 2,900 poems. He is often regarded as one of the most important American poets of the 20th century. He is associated with modernist free-form poetry, and much of his work uses idiosyncratic syntax and lower-case spellings for poetic expression."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings

Books by cummings at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2755

#poetry #literature

ALT

Edited 331d ago

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364d

At times I think what makes us who we are
is neither kinship nor our given states
but something lost between the world we own
and what we dream about behind the names
on days like this

—John Burnside, “History”
Published in SELECTED POEMS (Jonathan Cape, 2006)

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/389400/selected-poems-by-burnside-john/9780224078030

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #September11 #history #JohnBurnside

John Burnside
HISTORY

St Andrews: West Sands; September 2001

Today
as we flew the kites
– the sand spinning off in ribbons along the beach
and that gasoline smell from Leuchars gusting across
the golf links;
the tide far out
and quail-grey in the distance;
people
jogging, or stopping to watch
as the war planes cambered and turned
in the morning light –

today
– with the news in my mind, and the muffled dread
of what may come –

I knelt down in the sand
with Lucas
gathering shells
and pebbles
finding evidence of life in all this
driftwork:
snail shells; shreds of razorfish;
smudges of weed and flesh on tideworn stone.

At times I think what makes us who we are
is neither kinship nor our given states
but something lost between the world we own
and what we dream about behind the names
on days like this

ALT

our lines raised in the wind
our bodies fixed and anchored to the shore

and though we are confined by property
what tethers us to gravity and light
has most to do with distance and the shapes
we find in water
reading from the book
of silt and tides
the rose or petrol blue
of jellyfish and sea anemone
combining with a child’s
first nakedness.

Sometimes I am dizzy with the fear
of losing everything – the sea, the sky,
all living creatures, forests, estuaries:
we trade so much to know the virtual
we scarcely register the drift and tug
of other bodies
scarcely apprehend
the moment as it happens: shifts of light
and weather
and the quiet, local forms
of history: the fish lodged in the tide
beyond the sands;
the long insomnia
of ornamental carp in public parks
captive and bright
and hung in their own
slow-burning
transitive gold;
jamjars of spawn
and sticklebacks
or goldfish carried home

ALT

from fairgrounds
to the hum of radio

but this is the problem: how to be alive
in all this gazed-upon and cherished world
and do no harm

a toddler on a beach
sifting wood and dried weed from the sand
and puzzled by the pattern on a shell

his parents on the dune slacks with a kite
plugged into the sky
all nerve and line

patient; afraid; but still, through everything
attentive to the irredeemable.

ALT

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2y

English novelist and poet Charlotte Brontë died #OTD in 1855.

She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, which she published under the gender neutral pen name Currer Bell. Along with "Jane Eyre," her other notable works include "Shirley" (1849) and "Villette" (1853). Brontë's writing is celebrated for its exploration of social issues, particularly the role of women in Victorian society.

Books by Charlotte Brontë at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/408

#books #literature #poetry