Eggplant.place

10d

“Ancient Fire” from Threnody, my second volume of poetry, now available at http://nihtgengapress.com

Orders are going out first thing Monday (11/2)!

Thank you for reading, sharing, and supporting an independant poet! 🖤✨

#Books #Poetry #Indie

A poem from Threnody, a book by Michelle Joy Gallagher Soffe. It reads:

Ancient Fire

Here the
Sun wept
Ancient fire,
The light of
One hundred
Thousand
Years
Eulogized
On your skin.

ALT

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41d

#introduction

Independent #research in the #humanities. Writing #poetry. I've lived w/ #disability my entire adult life. Went from #poverty to grad school. Former Myanmar refugee activist/organizer.

Hope in #community #degrowth concerned w/ #localism, #equity, #nonviolence, & #openAccess to liberate #academia. Writing on #education reform, #trauma, #ConflictResolution, #sociology, #ViolenceStudies, #ableism & #feminist #theology.

@writingcommunity
@poetry
@violencestudies

#introductions

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4d

There are two chambers of the heart

https://subspacewagon.systems/there-are-two-chambers-of-the-heart/

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37d

A nighean a dhìreas an staidhre le do sheanmhair,
a dàrna làmh na do làimh-sa, a bata san tèile,
saoilidh tu gu bheil i cho sean ris a’ cheò,
gun smuain air do làmh fhèin a’ fàs preasach
no do dhruim crotach…

—Meg Bateman, “Nighean is Seanmhair aig a’ Ghailearaidh Nàiseanta”
published in TRANSPARENCIES (Polygon, 2013)

Today, 4 October, is Grandparents’ Day

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #grandparents #GrandparentsDay

Meg Bateman
Nighean is Seanmhair aig a’ Ghailearaidh Nàiseanta

A nighean a dhìreas an staidhre le do sheanmhair,
a dàrna làmh na do làimh-sa, a bata san tèile,
saoilidh tu gu bheil i cho sean ris a’ cheò,
gun smuain air do làmh fhèin a’ fàs preasach
no do dhruim crotach . . .
ach tha sibh nur co-aoisich
’s sibh a’ siubhal an t-saoghail seo còmhla.

Treòraichidh i gu dealbh thall san oisean thu,
“Fèin-dhealbh a’ pheantair aig fichead bliadhna ’s a trì”
le Dàibhidh Màrtainn (Albannach, ochdamh linn deug),
seallaidh i dhut tuar nam ban-sìth na ghruaidh,
na sgàilean na shùilean, a ruisg fhada bhàna,
is cha dad nas treasa do chòir-sa seach a còir-se
air a bheul cumadail glacte fo gach lì.

ALT

Meg Bateman
Girl and Grandmother at the National Gallery

Girl helping your grandmother up the gallery steps
with her stick in one hand and her arm in yours,
to you she seems as old as the hills,
you little imagine your own hand wrinkled
or your back bent,
but you are contemporaries –
you walk this earth together.

She leads you to a painting over in the corner,
“Self-portrait of the Artist at Twenty-Three”
by David Martin (eighteenth century, Scottish),
shows you the trace of foxglove in his cheek,
the shadowy eyes and long fair lashes,
and no better claim have you than she
on the chiselled lips caught between glazes.

ALT

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37d

Whan du telt me hoo du thowt o ‘luck’
as nae mair as chance, de happy hubbelskju
o aentropie, I thowt onnly o de ben-end
o my grandmidder’s hoose an aa her talismans
o tat…

—Roseanne Watt, “Lukkie”

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Shetland #Shaetlan #Scots #Scotslanguage #grandparents #GrandparentsDay

Lukkie
Roseanne Watt

Whan du telt me hoo du thowt o ‘luck’
as nae mair as chance, de happy hubbelskju
o aentropie, I thowt onnly o de ben-end
o my grandmidder’s hoose an aa her talismans
o tat. Inbi, luck wis acht an lenned lik coins,
hot fae de löf. Dere wis wyes aboot it:
a sixpence fir de scratchcairds; tree skoilts
o a gingernut wid gie dee a wish; a dram
onnly ivvir gied sungaets roond de room.
Ee time, ower supper, shö telt me hoo shö won
an aamos fae a haafman; a beaded bag
fir a skurtfoo o her luck at sea. I browt him
tae de dance dat week, but someen took him
fae de cloakroom. Less. Dere’s joost some tings
dat du canna keep a haad o. Dat’s true enoff.
It seems tae me wir luck his aye been wattir
cupped by hands at prayer, in a langwich
at his mair wirds fir ill-luckit tings as fair.
Nivir leet, shö says. De lotto’s demoarn.
Can I git dee a gingernut?

ALT

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37d

My grandfather didn’t know he was a Taoist.
He had fished the river Awe for sixty years.
Life is sensed as a flowing movement,
a power like wind or water. When he cast,
it was the bank that moved, not the river…

—Lorn Macintyre, “Satori”
from The Bridport Prize Anthology 2013

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #grandparents #GrandparentsDay #fishing #Zen #satori #tao #taoism

Satori
Lorn Macintyre

My grandfather didn’t know he was a Taoist.
He had fished the river Awe for sixty years.
Life is sensed as a flowing movement,
a power like wind or water. When he cast,
it was the bank that moved, not the river.
The osprey with the salmon in its talons
needed no metaphor to describe its beauty.
He saw the suchness of the landscape,
the great whole, perfect, sky, mountain,
as in a painting by the Zen K’un-t’an.
There is no Gaelic for the term satori,
the solution lying beyond the intellect,
that flash of delighted intuition, sensing
that a salmon is lying in the current,
while not seeing a ripple with the eye.
If I had told him: ‘you read the river
like a book, noting between the lines
what other fishermen fail to spy,’
he would have clouted me on the head,
the way Zen Masters took the big stick
to pupils who insisted on comparison.
The river needs no language, no homage.
It goes its own way, like the osprey
which will never run out of sky.

ALT

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37d

There is no need they say
but the needles still move
their rhythms in the working of your hands
as easily
as if your hands
were once again those sure and skilful hands
of the fisher-girl…

—Liz Lochhead, “For my Grandmother Knitting”
published in DREAMING FRANKENSTEIN (Birlinn, 2011)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/dreaming-frankenstein-2/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #grandparents #grandparentsday #knitting

For My Grandmother Knitting
by Liz Lochhead

There is no need they say
but the needles still move
their rhythms in the working of your hands
as easily
as if your hands
were once again those sure and skilful hands
of the fisher-girl.

You are old now
and your grasp of things is not so good
but master of your moments then
deft and swift
you slit the still-ticking quick silver fish.
Hard work it was too
of necessity.

But now they say there is no need
as the needles move
in the working of your hands
once the hands of the bride
with the hand-span waist
once the hands of the miner’s wife
who scrubbed his back
in a tin bath by the coal fire
once the hands of the mother
of six who made do and mended
scraped and slaved slapped sometimes
when necessary.

But now they say there is no need
the kids they say grandma
have too much already
more than they can wear
too many scarves and cardigans –
gran you do too much
there’s no necessity.

At your window you wave
them goodbye Sunday.
With your painful hands
big on shrunken wrists.
Swollen-jointed. Red. Arthritic. Old.
But the needles still move
their rhythms in the working of your hands
easily
as if your hands remembered
of their own accord the pattern
as if your hands had forgotten
how to stop.

ALT

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37d

No one makes soup like my Grandpa’s,
with its diced carrots the perfect size
and its diced potatoes the perfect size
and its wee soft bits –
what are their names? …

—Jackie Kay, “Grandpa’s Soup”
published in DARLING (Bloodaxe, 2007)

https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/darling-877

#Scottish #literature poem #poetry #grandparents #GrandparentsDay

Grandpa’s Soup
by Jackie Kay

No one makes soup like my Grandpa’s,
with its diced carrots the perfect size
and its diced potatoes the perfect size
and its wee soft bits –
what are their names?
and its big bit of hough,
which rhymes with loch, floating
like a rich island in the middle of the soup sea.

I say, Grandpa, Grandpa your soup is the best soup in the whole world.
And Grandpa says, Och,
which rhymes with hough and loch,
Och, Don’t be daft,
because he’s shy about his soup, my Grandpa.
He knows I will grow up and pine for it.
I will fall ill and desperately need it.
I will long for it my whole life after he is gone.
Every soup will become sad and wrong after he is gone.
He knows when I’m older I will avoid soup altogether.
Oh Grandpa, Grandpa, why is your soup so glorious? I say,
tucking into my fourth bowl in a day.

Barley! That’s the name of the wee soft bits. Barley.

ALT

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4d

You that through all the dying summer
Came every morning to our breakfast table,
A lonely bachelor mummer,
And fed on the marmalade
So deeply, all your strength was scarcely able
To prise you from the sweet pit you had made…

—Edwin Muir, “The Late Wasp”
from One Foot in Eden (Faber, 1956)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Autumn

The Late Wasp
by Edwin Muir

You that through all the dying summer
Came every morning to our breakfast table,
A lonely bachelor mummer,
And fed on the marmalade
So deeply, all your strength was scarcely able
To prise you from the sweet pit you had made, –
You and the earth have now grown older,
And your blue thoroughfares have felt a change;
They have grown colder;
And it is strange
How the familiar avenues of the air
Crumble now, crumble; the good air will not hold,
All cracked and perished with the cold;
And down you dive through nothing and through despair.

ALT

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4d

There are two chambers of the heart

https://subspacewagon.systems/there-are-two-chambers-of-the-heart/

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4d

fractal dollars for a hostile church’s porcelain lamps

https://subspacewagon.systems/fractal-dollars-for-a-hostile-churchs-porcelain-lamps/

_____
https://archive.org/details/the-ambush-of-time-by-richard-j-tilley
_____

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4d

Pathological Dewy Saintsmithing Neighbors (called a thousand horses)

https://subspacewagon.systems/pathological-dewy-saintsmithing-neighbors-called-a-thousand-horses/

___
https://archive.org/details/debriefing-after-meeting-with-god-by-richard-j-tilley
___
https://www.letters.directory
https://saturation.earth
https://www.exeunt.me
___

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3d

Rockslide on the Garden’s Edge

https://archive.org/details/rockslide-on-the-gardens-edge-by-richard-j-tilley

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rockslide-on-the-gardens-edge-by-richard-j-tilley

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3d

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,‍‍
‍‍‍‍‍‍Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,‍‍
‍‍‍‍‍‍An’ fellow-mortal!

—Robert Burns, “To a Mouse, On turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785”

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #18thcentury #RobertBurns #ToAMouse #environmentalism

To a Mouse, On turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785.
Robert Burns

Wee, sleekit, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,‍‍
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee‍‍
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,‍‍
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,‍‍
An’ fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave‍‍
’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,‍‍
An’ never miss’t!

ALT

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,‍‍
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,‍‍
Baith snell an’ keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,‍‍
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past‍‍
Out thro’ thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,‍‍
But house or hald,
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,‍‍
An’ cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men‍‍
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,‍‍
For promis’d joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,‍‍
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,‍‍
I guess an’ fear!

ALT

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4d

Mind that night in November, the pair of us
bursting from Mareel like late-comers
to the cinema-dark of the evening.
How we nearly missed it, the other show
that night…

—Roseanne Watt, “Mareel”
published in MODER DY (Polygon, 2019)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/moder-dy/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Shetland #auroraborealis

Mareel
by Roseanne Watt

Mind that night in November, the pair of us
bursting from Mareel like late-comers
to the cinema-dark of the evening.
How we nearly missed it, the other show
that night: the aurora, the dancers, unspooling
their reels of green across the sky, despite
a bone-bright moon in the south. Mind
how the waves in Hay’s Dock lit up with this
borrowed phosphorescence, and we skirled
at the spectacle of it all; a sky of light, a sea of sky,
and behind us, the noost of Mareel,
its north-pointed prow.

ALT

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36d

The Dominie is growin’ grey,
And, feth, he’s keepit thrang
Wi’ counts an’ spellin’ a’ the day,
And liffies when they’re wrang…

—“The Dominie’s Happy Lot”, by poet & schoolmaster Walter Wingate (1865–1918)

Times may have changed, but happy World Teachers’ Day – 5 October – to all who celebrate!

1/4

https://www.unesco.org/en/days/teachers

#Scottish #literature #teachers #teaching #WorldTeachersDay #poem #poetry #19thcentury #Victorian #Scots #Scotslanguage

The Dominie’s Happy Lot
Walter Wingate

The Dominie is growin’ grey,
And, feth, he’s keepit thrang
Wi’ counts an’ spellin’ a’ the day,
And liffies when they’re wrang.
He dauners out at nine o’clock,
He dauners hame at four—
Frae twal to ane to eat and smoke—
And sae his day is owre!

Oh! Leezie, Leezie, fine and easy
Is a job like yon—
A’ Saturday at gowf to play,
And aye the pay gaun on!

And when the burn comes doun in spate,
And troots are taken weel,
To tak’ a day he isna blate,
Sine marches aff wi’s creel.
His garden, it has ne’er a weed,
His tatties are a’ soun’,
The laddies needna fash to read,
As lang’s they delve his grun’.

Oh! Leezie, Leezie, fine and easy
Is a job like yon—
Weel or ill he’s maister still,
And aye the pay gaun on!

ALT

When winter days are cauld and dark,
And dykes are deep wi’ snaw,
And bairns are shivern’ owre their wark,
He shuts the shop at twa;
And when it comes to Hogmanay,
And fun comes roarin’ ben,
And ilka dog maun tak’ a day,
The Dominie tak’s ten!

Oh! Leezie, Leezie, fine and easy
Is a job like yon—
To stop the mill whene’er you will,
And aye the pay gaun on!

And when Inspectors gi’e a ca’
He tak’s them roun’ to dine,
And aye the upshot o’ it a—
“The bairns are daein’ fine!”
And sae the “Board” come smirkin’ roun’
Wi’ prizes in their haun’;
And syne it’s frae the end o’ June
Until the Lord kens whan!

Oh! Leezie, Leezie, fine and easy
Is a job like yon—
Sax weeks to jaunt and gallivant,
And aye the pay gaun on!

ALT

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36d

This newspaper hoarding – here displayed by Tom Leonard (1944–2018) on his bookcase – was described by the author as

“the only ‘trophy’ I ever got for my poetry that continues to give me some pleasure, when I remember it.”

4–10 October is Banned Books Week

1/3

https://www.tomleonard.co.uk/journal/blog-march.html

#Scottish #literature #censorship #BannedBooksWeek #poetry

ALT

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1d

Book Of The Unwritten Arts
https://archive.org/details/book-of-the-unwritten-arts-by-richard-j-tilley

Saturation Memos And Poems
https://archive.org/details/saturation-memos-and-poems-by-richard-j-tilley

______

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book-of-the-unwritten-arts-by-richard-j-tilley

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35d

Her memory is mostly updraft, embering
eighty-three years of nature’s gleanings –
like knowing-fine
that October’s nettles are the fiercest…

—Leonie Charlton, “Mrs Maclean”
published in NOTHING BUT A SET OF EYES FOR STARS: New Writing Scotland 41 (ASL, 2023)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws41/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

MRS MACLEAN
by Leonie Charlton

Her memory is mostly updraft, embering
eighty-three years of nature’s gleanings –
like knowing-fine
that October’s nettles are the fiercest

last night a toad circled the house
he poisoned her sense of home
and today she misplaced a whole turnip
has looked in all the obvious old places

is still looking now by brittle moonlight
keeping a beady eye out for drag-marks
and toe-dabs of a predating toad,
the coppered stare and deft tongue.
Her memory is mostly updraft, embering.

ALT

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35d

The merry badger keeps his way
Nocturnally,
And I go merry to my play
Even as he…

—Olive Fraser, “The Solitaries”
from THE WRONG MUSIC, @canongate.co.uk 1989

Happy National Badger Day – 6 October – to all who celebrate!

https://www.badgertrust.org.uk/brocktober

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #naturepoetry #womenwriters #badger #badgers #NationalBadgerDay

The Solitaries
by Olive Fraser

The merry badger keeps his way
Nocturnally,
And I go merry to my play
Even as he.

Minding our own business
Tending our own,
We are no more than this.
Leave us alone.

ALT

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2d

Complete Collection From "Trilogy" Visitation

https://archive.org/details/complete-collection-from-trilogy-visitation

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complete-collection-from-trilogy-visitation

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1d

Poems that mention #CatClyde

https://subspacewagon.systems/?s=Cat+Clyde

____

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?s=Cat+Clyde

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35d

Third Man Syndrome – the belief, at the far edge of exhaustion, fear or grief, that someone unseen walks alongside – has inspired Kathleen Jamie to write a new narrative poem where that presence speaks. She sets it among people who have met it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0032f9x

#Scottish #literature #poetry #mountaineering

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2d

lubber line proximity (Prince of Memphis, Part II)

https://subspacewagon.systems/lubber-line-proximity-prince-of-memphis-part-ii/

__
https://archive.org/details/more-songs-the-true-name-of-a-friend-by-richard-j-tilley
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2d

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you’ll remember. For you need not so…

—Charles Hamilton Sorley (1895–1915)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47427/when-you-see-millions-of-the-mouthless-dead

#Scottish #literature #RemembranceSunday #poem #poetry #warpoetry #warpoem #WW1