Rising in November in these days of dusk
I am one life older, watching now as the walls
green over, the stones break into bud;
if this is ebb-tide turned to flood it means that
nightfall might begin again at dawn.
And so it does…
—Robin Robertson, “Crossing the Archipelago”
published in SAILING THE FOREST (Picador, 2014)
https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/robin-robertson/sailing-the-forest/9781447231554
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…
—Roseanne Watt, “Mareel”
published in MODER DY (Polygon, 2019)
https://birlinn.co.uk/product/moder-dy/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Shetland #November #auroraborealis
The postman just delivered my contributor's copy of The Storms Issue 5 & it is GORGEOUS! @StormShelter & @rhonagreene, you've outdone yourselves!
And, additional thanks to Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and Fingal Arts for their support of this issue
https://eatthestorms.com/the-storm-shop/
#poetry #prose #VisualArt #art #PoetryCommunity #WritingCommunity
Roch the wind in the clear day’s dawin
Blaws the cloods heelster-gowdie ow’r the bay,
But there’s mair nor a roch wind blawin
Through the great glen o’ the warld the day…
—Hamish Henderson, “The Freedom Come-All-Ye”
Published in The Golden Treasury of Scottish Verse, @canongatebooks
https://canongate.co.uk/books/3267-the-golden-treasury-of-scottish-verse/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #song #HamishHenderson #20thcentury #change #hope
Push the Boat Out 2025
20–23 Nov, Edinburgh
This year’s Push the Boat Out festival sets sail from 20–23 November with a bold mix of poetry, performance, music & art in a sparkling celebration of words in all their forms, with over 120 artists on board!
Nam bhodach liath a-nis
a’ streap gu mullach a bhràighe,
chan eil mi a’ còrdadh riut, a Llywarch,
mun bhata càm is riatanach gach là…
—Uilleam Nèill, “Freagairt Do Llywarch Hen”
published in FRIENDS & KANGAROOS: New Writing Scotland 17 (ASL, 1999)
(Llywarch Hen, c.534–608 CE, was an early Welsh poet & prince of Rheged, who complained about his advancing age & dependence on his walking stick)
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #Welsh #CelticStudies
Does honey
Remember
The comb?
Hexagonal and
Golden,
And do your
Atoms remember
The core of
The star that
Made them?
Ask yourself
When next
You burn.
Fog shroud
and clouds
(when the clock
chimed late
in the heavy
November night-
time) lifting
the mystery
for a greater…
—Edwin Morgan, “Guy Fawkes Moon”
published in COLLECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 1997)
https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781847779656/collected-poems/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #GuyFawkes #BonfireNight #November5th
The mighty Mavors, jealous to behold
A Mars more mighty nor himself below,
Did once resolve his rivall to ore’throw…
—Sir Robert Ayton (1569–1638), “Upon the 5th of November”
published in JACOBEAN PARNASSUS: Scottish Poetry from the Reign of James I (ASL, 2022)
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/jacobean-parnassus/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #17thcentury #EarlyModern #BonfireNight #GuyFawkes #Jacobean #5thNovember
May our empathy
Never atrophy
In a world
Built on
Apathy.
“Ach thèid an crann a thoirt dhen fharadh”: Celebrating Thirty Years of Tuath is Tighearna (‘Tenants and Landlords’), 1995-2025
21 Nov, University of Edinburgh. Free, ticketed
This year's Canna Lecture will be delivered by Dr Martin Macgregor who will assess the impact of Donald Meek's anthology of 19th-century Gaelic verse, Tuath is Tighearna (SGTS, 1995), thirty years on from its publication.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/canna-lecture-2025-tickets-1924250979479
#Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #poetry #19thcentury #Victorian
Dod! – that’s him nou – eik up the byne;
afore the hairth, his claen sark hing:
pit claes is waffin on the line;
merle on a rowan singin fine.
—David Purdie, “Merle on a Rowan”
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/merle-rowan/
#Scottish #literature #Scotstober #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage
"Not uselessly employed,
Might I pursue this theme through every change
Of exercise and play, to which the year
Did summon us in his delightful round."
In July 1850.
William Wordsworth's The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet's Mind: An Autobiographical Poem, on which he has worked since 1798, is first published about three months after his death by Edward Moxon in London in 14 books, with the title supplied by the poet's widow, Mary.
Walking in a waking dream
I watched nineteen deer
pour from ridge to glen-floor,
then each in turn leap,
leap the new-raised
peat-dark burn…
—Kathleen Jamie, “The Hinds”
from THE BONNIEST COMPANIE (Picador, 2015)
https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/the-bonniest-companie/9781509801718
Poetic Gems for Topaz: Verses for the Bicentenary of McGonagall
19 Nov, Dundee. Free, ticketed
The Wyvern Poets will share their verses written to celebrate the life, works & legacy of William Topaz McGonagall. The Wyvern Poets acknowledge McGonagall’s enduring impact, which has spread far beyond the city he called home.
#Scottish #literature #poetry #19thcentury #Victorian #McGonagall #BadPoetry
Velvetine Verses: Scotland’s Young Makars Poetry Evening
11 Dec, Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh. Free, ticketed
An evening of poetry and music showcasing poets from four years of the Scottish Poetry Library’s Next Generation Young Makars mentoring scheme. Curated by Ria Smart.
Self expression in poetry
You don't need to talk about your feelings or yourself to express yourself through art and creativity. Anything you might create about the world outside yourself is also about you.
https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2024-07-26-self-expression-in-poetry/
"Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature."
Moralités.
~Paul Valéry (30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945)
Sniff
Baking
Cookie smell
Grandma's cooking
Unmistakable -
Rich tantalising scents
Resistance impossible
Heaven - a moment on that tray
Fingers poised, waiting for approval
Once we have seized the day, all that's left - crumbs!
#Cookie #MastoPrompt #Etheree #Poem #Poetry #MicroPoems #WritingCommunity #PoetryCommunity
The bell that tolls my syllables can tell
An underwater tale, clang how there fell
Suddenly out of a surface shouting world
Into dumb calm doomed children…
—“S.S. City of Benares”, by George Sutherland Fraser (1915–1980) – born #OTD, 8 Nov.
On 18 September, 1940, at one minute past midnight, the SS CITY OF BENARES was torpedoed in the Atlantic. Of 134 passengers, 90 were child refugees bound for Canada. Only 13 children survived.
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WarPoetry #WW2 #refugees
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In return, I promise not to become a neuro-sparse psychopathic plutocrat.
"Zum Hassen oder Lieben
Ist alle Welt getrieben,
Es bleibet keine Wahl,
der Teufel ist neutral."
"To hate or to love
All the world is driven,
There is no choice,
the devil is neutral."
~Clemens Brentano (9 September 1778 – 28 July 1842)
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
#RemembranceSunday #Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoetry #WW1
Past life, past tears, far past the grave,
The tryst is set for me,
Since, for our all, your all you gave
On the slopes of Picardy…
—Violet Jacob, “To A.H.J.”
Violet Jacob’s only son, Harry, was killed at the Battle of the Somme on 16 July 1916, aged 20
https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/502598/arthur-henry-augustus-jacob/
#RemembranceSunday #Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoetry #WW1
Chan fhaca mi Lannes aig Ratasbon
no MacGillFhinnein aig Allt Èire
no Gill-Ìosa aig Cùil Lodair,
ach chunnaic mi Sasannach san Èipheit.
(I did not see Lannes at Ratisbon
nor MacLennan at Auldearn
nor Gillies MacBain at Culloden,
but I saw an Englishman in Egypt.)
—Somhairle MacGill-Eain (Sorley MacLean), “Curaidhean” (“Heroes”)
Sorley MacLean was severely wounded at El Alamein, 1942
#RemembranceSunday #Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #poem #poetry #warpoetry #WW2
