But gin the auld fowks’ tales are richt
An’ ghaists come hame on Hallow nicht,
O freend o’ freends! what wad I gie
To feel ye rax yer hand to me
Atween the dark an’ caun’le-licht?
—Violet Jacob, “Hallowe’en”
published in COUNTRY LIFE, 1920
Jacob’s only son, Harry, was killed at the Somme in 1916. This poem evokes the desperate sadness felt by so many in the aftermath of the First World War.
#Scottish #literature #Scots #Scotslanguage #Halloween #poem #poetry #warpoetry #WW1
A wife was sitting at her reel ae night;
And aye she sat, and aye she reeled, and aye she wished for company…
Sadie Stein recalls “The Strange Visitor” – an eerie Scots tale. Performed well it should cause “a scream of alarm”
1/2
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/01/16/the-stranger/
#Scottish #literature #Halloween #19thcentury #folklore #poem #poetry #performance
A boannie nicht for castin kale:
a fat mön vaegin owre Sannis,
a hale gadderie o laads an lasses…
—Christine De Luca, “Hallowe’en Hansel”
published in WAST WI DA VALKYRIES (Shetland Library, 1997)
Listen to Christine reading her poems online here:
https://www.christinedeluca.co.uk/pages/wast_wi_da_valkyries
#Scottish #literature #Shetland #Shetlandic #Scots #Scotslnguage #Halloween #poem #poetry
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow’d;
Loud, deep, & lang the thunder bellow’d:
That night, a child might understand,
The Deil had business on his hand…
—Robert Burns’s “Tam o’ Shanter”, read by Hamish MacDonald; illustrations by Gary Welsh
Happy Halloween!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAqVwCa_x5o
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #RobertBurns #18thcentury #TamOShanter #Scots #Scotslanguage
The Symphony of Tired Soot in Restraining Trembles
https://subspacewagon.systems/the-symphony-of-tired-soot-in-restraining-trembles/
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No more poems about or writing about God at all
https://subspacewagon.systems/no-more-poems-about-or-writing-about-god-at-all-cross-posted/
___
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willow anchors shame
https://subspacewagon.systems/willow-anchors-shame/
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https://archive.org/details/the-ambush-of-time-by-richard-j-tilley
___
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Late ae mugglie November nicht I met a gaberlunzie,
breweries bruised barley braith writhin up the closes,
topaz glimmerin street lichts blintered doon throu the mirk
on hameless loons wi “Carlies” handin roon a spliff…
—Mary Johnston, “Gowstie Gaberlunzie”
published in IN THE EVENT OF FIRE: New Writing Scotland 27 (ASL, 2009)
The wood where I was gone
for ages, on those Sunday afternoons:
lost on purpose, looking for the lithe
weasel in the grass,
stopped in my tracks, the way you stop
for echoes…
—John Burnside, “Lost”
from SELECTED POEMS (Cape, 2006)
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/389400/selected-poems-by-burnside-john/9780224078030
New book – The Piano Juries, the last book with God
https://subspacewagon.systems/new-book-the-piano-juries-the-last-book-with-god/
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https://archive.org/details/the-piano-juries-by-richard-j-tilley
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To be honest, I told my close people this poem deserved a Pulitzer…and meant it at the time
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Naima Bock Live
https://subspacewagon.systems/naima-bock-live/
___
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For the month of October I wrote a total of 16690 words of 143477 total words on the year so far, plus spent 3 hours 50 minutes revising/editing
#amwriting #amediting #poetry
Three most read poems in October
https://subspacewagon.systems/three-most-read-poems-in-october/
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https://archive.org/details/the-ambush-of-time-by-richard-j-tilley
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WRITERS!
New Writing Scotland seeks a new co-editor for English- & Scots-language work. Applicants should be currently based in Scotland & have a strong publishing record, with a focus on poetry. Post is up to 3 years: stipend £1500 per issue.
Pls RT 👇
https://asls.org.uk/new-writing-scotland-seeks-co-editor/
#Scottish #writer #writingcommunity #poet #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage
Where ashes tap a grave’s bell
https://subspacewagon.systems/where-ashes-tap-a-graves-bell/
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https://archive.org/details/the-piano-juries-by-richard-j-tilley
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Ged dh’itheadh beul na h-oidhche
Mo nàbaidhean ’s mo chàirdean
Tha mi fada nad chomain
A ghuilbnich…
—Murchadh Dòmhnallach, “Guilbneach”
published in SOME SORT OF EMBRACE: New Writing Scotland 15 (ASL, 1997)
#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #naturepoem #naturepoetry #bird #curlew
“The use of Scots, apart from the relative ease of working up the right atmosphere, also helps (though dangerously) because of the verbal freedom it confers on a harassed translator”
—Edwin Morgan on translating Mayakovsky, in EDWIN MORGAN: In Touch With Language. A New Prose Collection 1950–2005 (ASL, 2020)
1/3
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/edwin-morgan-in-touch-with-language/
#Scottish #literature #poetry #translation #InternationalTranslationDay #Scots #Scotslanguage #Russian #EdwinMorgan #Mayakovsky
Faar’s Baabie Jeanie’s loon? The aal wife hersel
Stans treeshin hame the milkers at the ley park yett.
Faa caas the mornin cairt an fordals neeps an strae,
Wi waages up an risin an fee’d folk sae ull to get?…
—“War: 1939–1945” by Flora Garry (1900–2000)—born #OTD, 30 September
published in FROM THE LINE: Scottish War Poetry 1914–1945
1/2
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #20thcentury #warpoetry #WW2 #womenwriters
“Publishable?” Perhaps she’ll advise him where to sell
Over a bottle of home-made later? Oh shit. She can tell
This is going to be The Gig From Hell…
—Liz Lochhead, “Hell for Poets”
published in A Handsel: New & Collected Poems (Polygon, 2023)
A constellation of the retired house you’re in
https://subspacewagon.systems/a-constellation-of-the-retired-house-youre-in/
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https://archive.org/details/more-songs-the-true-name-of-a-friend-by-richard-j-tilley
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Exhibition: A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
6 Nov–6 Dec, Scottish Storytelling centre, Edinburgh – free
Painter Alexander Moffat marks the centenary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s epic poem A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle – a landmark of modern Scottish literature
https://scottishstorytellingcentre.online.red61.co.uk/event/913:6850/913:30634/
#Scottish #literature #art #visualart #painting #exhibition #HughMacDiarmid #MacDiarmid #poem #poetry #modernism
To have got so far, alone
Almost to the seventieth stone
Is a wonder…
—George Mackay Brown, “One Star in the West”
published in Following A Lark (John Murray, 1996)
Happy National Poetry Day! The theme for 2026 is “Wonder”
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #NationalPoetryDay #GeorgeMackayBrown #wonder
![2: A note to the translation of Mayakovsky’s ‘Fiddle-Ma-Fidgin’
In the triptych by Hieronymus Bosch known as The Garden of Earthly Delights, the ‘Hell’ panel shows a man crucified on a harp, with the strings passing through his body, but his arms free, embracing it, in an extraordinary image of mingled pain, beauty, and yearning. In the same picture, this man is surrounded by much more grotesque images, where figures of desperation are doing things to and with various musical instruments
Which even to name wad be unlawfu’.
The poetry of Mayakovsky from his futurist period shows a similar conjunction of extreme yearning and coarsely grotesque asseverations, held together in a web of convincing fantasy where animate and inanimate react on one another. In the present poem (actual title The Violin and a Little Nervously, date 1914), written when Mayakovsky was twenty, the poet expresses in miniature the situation of his whole life: loneliness, desire to communicate and ‘contribute’, sympathy towards the outcast and the misunderstood. The potential desperation in this, however, finds voice through fantasy, fun, and caricature. A violin (the word is feminine in Russian) begins to ‘sing’ in such a personal and yearning way that the other instruments in the orchestra get annoyed with it and tell it to shut up until it can control itself; the poet bursts in on the orchestra and despite their ribald laughter embraces the […]](/proxy/post_attachment/1192233/4447cc34d9.webp "2: A note to the translation of Mayakovsky’s ‘Fiddle-Ma-Fidgin’
In the triptych by Hieronymus Bosch known as The Garden of Earthly Delights, the ‘Hell’ panel shows a man crucified on a harp, with the strings passing through his body, but his arms free, embracing it, in an extraordinary image of mingled pain, beauty, and yearning. In the same picture, this man is surrounded by much more grotesque images, where figures of desperation are doing things to and with various musical instruments
Which even to name wad be unlawfu’.
The poetry of Mayakovsky from his futurist period shows a similar conjunction of extreme yearning and coarsely grotesque asseverations, held together in a web of convincing fantasy where animate and inanimate react on one another. In the present poem (actual title The Violin and a Little Nervously, date 1914), written when Mayakovsky was twenty, the poet expresses in miniature the situation of his whole life: loneliness, desire to communicate and ‘contribute’, sympathy towards the outcast and the misunderstood. The potential desperation in this, however, finds voice through fantasy, fun, and caricature. A violin (the word is feminine in Russian) begins to ‘sing’ in such a personal and yearning way that the other instruments in the orchestra get annoyed with it and tell it to shut up until it can control itself; the poet bursts in on the orchestra and despite their ribald laughter embraces the […]")
![[…] violin and proposes to this ‘wooden bride’, which he sees as a kindred soul.
I wanted in my translation to bring out if I could the distinctive Mayakovskian mixture of grotesque high-jinks and underlying seriousness of purpose. To do this, I used Scots, trying to tap an enduring Scottish tradition of grotesque exaggeration or fantasy which is found in Dunbar and the ballads, Burns and MacDiarmid.
They’ll turn me in your arms, lady,
Into an esk and adder;
But haud me fast, and fear me not,
I am your bairn’s father.
The use of Scots, apart from the relative ease of working up the right atmosphere, also helps (though dangerously) because of the verbal freedom it confers on a harassed translator. What can only be weakly called ‘expressive’ words tumble from the Caledonian cornucopia: slunkert, daunert, glinkit, sprachlt, crunkelt, yowp and yowl, for which ‘slunk’, ‘wandered’, ‘glanced’, ‘sprawled’, ‘folded’, ‘bawl and howl’ are unimpressive equivalents. The temptation in this is to make the poem look more continuously vivid or ‘strange’ than it really is. Fortunately it is difficult to make Mayakovsky look over-vivid, as his diction employs every liberty the genius of Russian allows, but the method would work only with poets who were similarly inventive and uninhibited in their linguistic texture. I don’t look on Scots as a medium that can now be widely or thoughtlessly used in poetry, but against the argument that we have reached the stage where it should be given up altogether I would offer the evidence of my own experience in translating Mayakovsky (and add to it Sydney Goodsir Smith’s Scottish version of Blok’s The Twelve): Scots gets closer than English to the ‘barbarian lyre’ of the revolutionary spirit. If people can be persuaded to read it, it will give them a sensation they cannot at the moment get from English verse.
The Review 1, April/May 1962.](/proxy/post_attachment/1192234/07ab7e5b54.webp "[…] violin and proposes to this ‘wooden bride’, which he sees as a kindred soul.
I wanted in my translation to bring out if I could the distinctive Mayakovskian mixture of grotesque high-jinks and underlying seriousness of purpose. To do this, I used Scots, trying to tap an enduring Scottish tradition of grotesque exaggeration or fantasy which is found in Dunbar and the ballads, Burns and MacDiarmid.
They’ll turn me in your arms, lady,
Into an esk and adder;
But haud me fast, and fear me not,
I am your bairn’s father.
The use of Scots, apart from the relative ease of working up the right atmosphere, also helps (though dangerously) because of the verbal freedom it confers on a harassed translator. What can only be weakly called ‘expressive’ words tumble from the Caledonian cornucopia: slunkert, daunert, glinkit, sprachlt, crunkelt, yowp and yowl, for which ‘slunk’, ‘wandered’, ‘glanced’, ‘sprawled’, ‘folded’, ‘bawl and howl’ are unimpressive equivalents. The temptation in this is to make the poem look more continuously vivid or ‘strange’ than it really is. Fortunately it is difficult to make Mayakovsky look over-vivid, as his diction employs every liberty the genius of Russian allows, but the method would work only with poets who were similarly inventive and uninhibited in their linguistic texture. I don’t look on Scots as a medium that can now be widely or thoughtlessly used in poetry, but against the argument that we have reached the stage where it should be given up altogether I would offer the evidence of my own experience in translating Mayakovsky (and add to it Sydney Goodsir Smith’s Scottish version of Blok’s The Twelve): Scots gets closer than English to the ‘barbarian lyre’ of the revolutionary spirit. If people can be persuaded to read it, it will give them a sensation they cannot at the moment get from English verse.
The Review 1, April/May 1962.")
