poetry

90d

Xonnet S

This poet wil ln
ot be donne, though some have ca ll
ed for its end, dis
member&imprison ment
:it will not be so.
Death

, death, rich revenge & splendor,
into more moist pleasures till
must flow. Rest & sleep with
held from those who
've earnt it--no? Then red
rest, red sleep, red de
livery, de
vilry for those betters
who burn us.
Give us drugs.
Give us poison.
Give us charms
against our enemies, we'll
overthrow the street
don the black shroud, reap
stroke
fires, swell
loud

til we can work something
of which Death can be proud.

#anarchism #poetry

Edited 90d ago

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87d

Whatever the difference is, it all began
the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers
and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again,
possessed him, till it would not fall or waver…

—Don Paterson, “Waking with Russell”
published in Selected Poems (Faber, 2012)

https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571281800-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #FathersDay #poem #poetry

Waking with Russell
by Don Paterson

Whatever the difference is, it all began
the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers
and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again,
possessed him, till it would not fall or waver;
and I pitched back not my old hard-pressed grin
but his own smile, or one I’d rediscovered.
Dear son, I was mezzo del cammin
and the true path was as lost to me as ever
when you cut in front and lit it as you ran.
See how the true gift never leaves the giver:
returned and redelivered, it rolled on
until the smile poured through us like a river.
How fine, I thought, this waking amongst men!
I kissed your mouth and pledged myself forever.

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87d

In the house where he sleeps
let my ears
be the leaves at the window.

Let the bulbs of the lamps
be my eyes
on the animal street…

—Miriam Nash, “Prayer for My Father as a Child”
published in All the Prayers in the House (Bloodaxe, 2017)

https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/all-the-prayers-in-the-house-1150

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #FathersDay

Prayer for My Father as a Child
by Miriam Nash

In the house where he sleeps
let my ears
be the leaves at the window.

Let the bulbs of the lamps
be my eyes
on the animal street.

Let the shadows that harbour
my unborn body
stir when harm is stirring.

I’ll sleep in the drawer
with the knives.
I’ll turn in the locks.

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99d

#OTD the poem "Casey at the Bat" was published in The San Francisco Examiner (then called The Daily Examiner) in 1888.

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

Books about baseball at PG

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=baseball

#poetry #sports

"Selection of studio posed photographs from the New York Public Library's Spalding Collection, a series of over 500 photographs, prints, drawings, caricatures, and printed illustrations donated in 1921 by early baseball player and sporting-goods tycoon A. G. Spalding (whose name to this day is printed across every ball used in the National League). The photographs below feature players of different teams from New York and Philadelphia and seem to be mostly taken in the 1870s and 1880s." - from the Public Doman Image Archive

Man in baseball uniform is in a batting stance about to strike the ball that is coming towards him.

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87d

Dheigheadh sinn a dh’iasgach,
mi fhèin is m’ athair,
is lìonadh sinn an eathar le
peilichean de rionnach, liutha,
is dheigheadh sinn timcheall a’ bhaile
gu gach nàbaidh gus am biodh na peilichean falamh…

—Iain MacRath, “Dheigheadh sinn a dh’iasgach”
published in Don’t. Even. Ask. Too. Hot.: New Writing Scotland 42 (ASL, 2024)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws42/

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

Iain MacRath
Dheigheadh sinn a dh’iasgach

Dheigheadh sinn a dh’iasgach,
mi fhèin is m’ athair,
is lìonadh sinn an eathar le
peilichean de rionnach, liutha,
is dheigheadh sinn timcheall a’ bhaile
gu gach nàbaidh gus am biodh na peilichean falamh.
Chunnaic mi m’ athair an raoir,
ged a chaochail e o chionn fichead bliadhna.
Chunnaic mi air na naidheachdan e
seacaid-teasairginn timcheall air
is an eathar làn,
làn de dhaoine.

Iain MacRae
We’d go fishing

We’d go fishing,
me and my father,
and we’d fill the dinghy
with pails of mackerel, lythe,
and we’d go round the village
to each neighbour till each pail was empty.
I saw my father last night,
though he died some twenty years ago.
I saw him on the news
a safety jacket around him
and the dinghy full,
full of people.

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87d

Lying asleep walking
Last night I met my father
Who seemed pleased to see me.
He wanted to speak. I saw
His mouth saying something
But the dream had no sound…

—W.S. Graham, “To Alexander Graham”
published in Collected Poems 1942–1977 (Faber, 1979)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48732/to-alexander-graham

#Scottish #literautre #poem #poetry #FathersDay

To Alexander Graham
by W. S. Graham

Lying asleep walking
Last night I met my father
Who seemed pleased to see me.
He wanted to speak. I saw
His mouth saying something
But the dream had no sound.

We were surrounded by
Laid-up paddle steamers
In The Old Quay in Greenock.
I smelt the tar and the ropes.

It seemed that I was standing
Beside the big iron cannon
The tugs used to tie up to
When I was a boy. I turned
To see Dad standing just
Across the causeway under
That one lamp they keep on.

He recognised me immediately.
I could see that. He was
The handsome, same age
With his good brows as when
He would take me on Sundays
Saying we’ll go for a walk.

Dad, what am I doing here?
What is it I am doing now?
Are you proud of me?
Going away, I knew
You wanted to tell me something.

You stopped and almost turned back
To say something. My father,
I try to be the best
In you you give me always.

Lying asleep turning
Round in the quay-lit dark
It was my father standing
As real as life. I smelt
The quay’s tar and the ropes.

I think he wanted to speak.
But the dream had no sound.
I think I must have loved him.

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64d

‘What will things be like in 2099, for poets, for the country, for everyone? I won’t be there, but my words might be and now, literally, on the pavement, I stand by them: “Be brave. By the weird-song in the dark you’ll find your way.”’

Kathleen Jamie at Holyrood, in the London Review of Books

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/june/at-the-canongate-wall

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Holyrood

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64d

Something to die for

To die: to give up life for
to die for means to live for
would we want to die for what
we would not live for?

—“Saving the Planet” by Tessa Ransford (1938–2015) – poet, activist, & founding director of the Scottish Poetry Library – born #OTD, 8 July

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/saving-planet/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #environment #ecology

Saving the Planet
Tessa Ransford

Something to die for

To die: to give up life for
to die for means to live for
would we want to die for what
we would not live for?

We cannot die for ourselves since death is the end of us
we cannot live for ourselves since that is absurdity
we die for what we can give and abandon generously

Here is what we die for:
our family name and honour
our children and children’s children
the principle of beauty in truth
a working mind and heart
humans who live with the planet
who thrive on thrift
who love to share and build
more life, life to die for.

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63d

And we left our beds in the dark
And we drove a cart to the hill
And we buried the jar of ale in the bog
And our small blades glittered in the dayspring
And we tore dark squares, thick pages
From the Book of Fire…

—George Mackay Brown, “Peat Cutting”
Published in Selected Poems: 1954–1992

https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/none/selected-poems-1954-1992/9781848549395/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Orkney #GeorgeMackayBrown

George Mackay Brown
Peat Cutting

And we left our beds in the dark
And we drove a cart to the hill
And we buried the jar of ale in the bog
And our small blades glittered in the dayspring
And we tore dark squares, thick pages
From the Book of Fire
And we spread them wet on the heather
And horseflies, poisonous hooks,
Stuck in our arms
And we laid off our coats
And our blades sank deep into water
And the lord of the bog, the kestrel
Paced round the sun
And at noon we leaned on our tuskars
– The cold unburied jar
Touched, like a girl, a circle of burning mouths
And the boy found a wild bees’ comb
And his mouth was a sudden brightness
And the kestrel fell
And a lark flashed a needle across the west
And we spread a thousand peats
Between one summer star
And the black chaos of fire at the earth’s centre.

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37d

But, John, have you seen the world, said he,
Trains and tramcars and sixty-seaters,
Cities in lands across the sea –
Giotto’s tower and the dome of St Peter’s?

—Robert Rendell, “Angle of Vision”
from The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry (Edinbrugh University Press, 2005)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Angle of Vision
Robert Rendall

But, John, have you seen the world, said he,
Trains and tramcars and sixty-seaters,
Cities in lands across the sea –
Giotto’s tower and the dome of St Peter’s?

No, but I’ve seen the arc of the earth,
From the Birsay shore, like the edge of a planet,
And the lifeboat plunge through the Pentland Firth
To a cosmic tide with the men that man it.

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63d

"Listen to the white worldappallingly weary from its immense effortthe crack of its joints rebelling under the hardness of the starslisten to the proclaimed victories which trumpet their defeatslisten to their grandiose alibis (stumbling so lamely)"

— John Berger, Aimé Césaire, Anna Bostock: Return to My Native Land, p. 47

#AiméCésaire #Poetry #Bookstodon @bookstodon@a.gup.pe

John Berger, Aimé Césaire, Anna Bostock: Return to My Native Land (2023, Penguin Books, Limited)

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85d

Brown burn water dropping
Between the grey stones,
The lapse and the murmur,
The bright overtones
Of cuckoo and curlew…

—Dorothy Margaret Paulin (1904–1982)
from Springtime by Loch Ken, & other poems (J.H. Maxwell Ltd., 1963)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/galloway-burn-june/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Galloway #20thcentury #Womenwriters

A Galloway Burn in June
Dorothy Margaret Paulin

Brown burn water dropping
Between the grey stones,
The lapse and the murmur,
The bright overtones
Of cuckoo and curlew
And faraway trill
Of a lark; great blue shadows
Stride over the hill:
Breeze and bird-call are blended
With murmur of bees;
Sun and wind stroke the grasses
And finger the trees.
Is it sunlight or greenlight?
This shimmer of leaves;
Is it seeing or dreaming,
The dapple that weaves
Across the brown water
That murmurs and spills
Through the grey stones forever
Among the green hills?

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85d

Between Two Beaches: Poetry Night
25 July, Auckengill. Free, ticketed

Poet & author George Gunn presents readings from Between Two Beaches, a collection written during his time as Caithness Makar & inspired by the landscapes & stories of the Far North

https://lytharts.org.uk/event/between-two-beaches-poetry-night/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Caithness

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62d

A CHAOS OF LIGHT
New Writing Scotland 43
Ed. by Kirstin Innes, Chris Powici & Niall O’Gallagher

“writing that unsettles and challenges, that questions assumptions… A rich, boisterous, tender, charming, angry, sorrowful, gleeful mix”

The latest & best collection of new writing in English, Gaelic, & Scots, coming Aug 2025 – available for preorder from all good bookshops!

@writingcommunity

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws43/

#Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #Scots #poetry #shortstories #writing

Book cover: A CHAOS OF LIGHT
New Writing Scotland 43
Edited by Kirstin Innes and Chris Powici
Gaelic Editor: Niall O'Gallagher

A dark purple-black cover. The book title is in pale yellow. A beam of white light rises up from the foot of the cover, forming the letter I in LIGHT. It hits the bottom of the capita A in CHAOS – represented by an upwards-pointing solid triangle – and a burst of colour emerges from the right-hand s-de of the triangle, as if light was passing through a prism. Multicoloured sparkles rise from the right-hand edge of the cover where the spectrum of light hits it.

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62d

Peewits quiffed like Elvis reel from rocks,
their sheen of feathers like blue suede
the breeze buffs in the midday air…

—Donald S. Murray, “An Incomplete History of Rock Music in the Hebrides”
published in The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry (EUP, 2005)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Hebrides #RockMusic #humour

An Incomplete History of Rock Music in the Hebrides
Donald S. Murray

Peewits quiffed like Elvis reel from rocks,
their sheen of feathers like blue suede
the breeze buffs in the midday air.
“He loves ewe. Meah! Meah! Meah!”
bleat a Fat Four of blackface sheep
beneath mop-tops of unshorn hair.

Jagged stalks of thistles strut,
flashing menace in the evening light
before a group of timeworn stones.
Spangled with glitter, starlings soar
and oystercatchers sport red lips
while herons stalk on platform soles.

Each fulmar packs its pistol.
There’s anarchy on cliff-tops
as they reel and spit on rocks below.
Then a riff is played on marram grass,
shells syncopate on shorelines as
night downs its curtain on the show.

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62d

StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival, seeks event proposals from poets, publishers, workshop facilitators & performers for 2026, scheduled to be held online & in St Andrews, 13–15 March

The theme for 2026 is “You Are Not Alone”

Submit proposals by 11 August

https://stanzapoetry.org/take-part/artist-proposals/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poets #poetrycommunity

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62d

In Conversation with... Pàdraig MacAoidh (Peter Mackay)
1 August, Edinburgh. Tickets £12

Scotland’s Makar, Pàdraig MacAoidh (Peter Mackay) crafts verse that resonates with the landscapes & languages of his native Lewis. Join him for a fascinating discussion on poetry's role in today’s world, the interplay between Gaelic & Scots traditions, & what it means to be Scotland’s poetic voice today.

https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/in-conversation-with-p-draig-macaoidh-peter-mackay

#Scottish #literature #poems #poetry #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #Scots

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84d

Today they laid him in the earth's cold colour,
a man from Lewis with his seventy-five
years struck from his head. Teacher, scholar,
he had worked a true task when all alive…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “For Angus MacLeod”
Published in New Collected Poems (Carcanet, 2011)

Iain Crichton Smith, himself a teacher, commemorates the life of a former Headmaster of Oban High School

Today, 18 June, is Thank a Teacher Day

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #teaching #teachers #ThankATeacherDay

Iain Crichton Smith

For Angus MacLeod
Headmaster, and Editor of Gaelic Poems

Today they laid him in the earth's cold colour,
a man from Lewis with his seventy-five
years struck from his head. Teacher, scholar,
he had worked a true task when all alive,

building a school, elucidating texts.
The Gaelic shone quite clearly in his bones.
A casket filled with ashes had been mixed
with filtered sunlight and the small stones.

A useful life with pupils and with poems:
sufficient honours (his humour asked no more)
he takes his place in many minds and rooms.
Without their knowing it, his patient care

instructs far hands to turn a new lever,
a voice to speak in a mild-mannered tone.
The deeds we do reverberate forever.
Inveterate justice weighs the flesh and bone.

His best editions are some men and women
who scrutinise each action like a word.
The truest work is learning to be human
definitive texts the poorest can afford.

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84d

"But that's excessive, and too little..." https://www.flickr.com/photos/woolamaloo_gazette/54599045468/in/dateposted/

Norman MacCaig #poetry on a planter, Rose Street

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #photography #photographie #NormanMacCaig #ScottishLiterature #Art #Sculpture #RoseStreet

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61d

I sowed nightscented stocks with the halfgrown hope
that this was more like gardening
than impatiens in pots…

—Angela McSeveney, “Windowbox”
published in Modern Scottish Women Poets, @canongatebooks 2003

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Angela McSeveney
Windowbox

I sowed nightscented stocks with the halfgrown hope
that this was more like gardening
than impatiens in pots.

They grew anaemic and spindly
coated by dust from the street.
From the ground they looked like weeds.

Nothing flashy or flowery
like a trumpetting hippaestrum
or a petal drenched Black-eyed Susan

and even I who planted them
rarely thought to look out
except maybe in the evenings

when the cool damp of Summer rain
sweated in the air
like an extra sense

and the night scent swam in
clear as spearmint
and soothed away the city noise.

Then there grew a garden:
rosebeds and herbs,
tangles of scarlet runners.

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83d

On seeing Iran in the news, I want to say

my grandmother was called Nasreen,
that she died two years ago in Tabriz
and I couldn’t go to say goodbye,
that she knew nothing of power,
nuclear or otherwise…

—Marjorie Lotfi, “On seeing Iran in the news, I want to say”
published in THE WRONG PERSON TO ASK (Bloodaxe, 2024). D.A. Prince reviews THE WRONG PERSON TO ASK on The Friday Poem:

https://thefridaypoem.substack.com/p/the-friday-poem-on-16th-may-2025

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Iran

Marjorie Lotfi
On seeing Iran in the news, I want to say

my grandmother was called Nasreen,
that she died two years ago in Tabriz
and I couldn’t go to say goodbye,
that she knew nothing of power,
nuclear or otherwise. I want to say
that the bonfires for Chahar Shanbeh Suri
were built by our neighbour’s hands;
as children we were taught to jump over
and not be caught by the flames. I want to say
my cousin Elnaz, the one born after I left,
has a son and two degrees in Chemistry,
and had trouble getting a job. I want to say
that the night we swam towards
the moon hanging over the horizon
of the Caspian Sea, we found ourselves
kneeling on a sandbar we couldn’t see
like a last gift. I want to say
I’m the wrong person to ask.

Edited 83d ago

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61d

There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window…

—Edwin Morgan, “Strawberries”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

Hot poetry for a hot day 🍓🍓🍓

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781784109967

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #summer #love #lovepoem #LGBTQ

Strawberries
Edwin Morgan

There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window
facing each other
your knees held in mine
the blue plates in our laps
the strawberries glistening
in the hot sunlight
we dipped them in sugar
looking at each other
not hurrying the feast
for one to come
the empty plates

laid on the stone together
with the two forks crossed
and I bent towards you
sweet in that air
in my arms
abandoned like a child
from your eager mouth
the taste of strawberries
in my memory
lean back again
let me love you

let the sun beat
on our forgetfulness
one hour of all
the heat intense
and summer lightning
on the Kilpatrick hills

let the storm wash the plates

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82d

I have fled through land and sea, blank land and sea,
because my house is besieged by murderers
And I was wrecked in the ocean, crushed and swept,
Spilling salt angry tears on the salt waves…

—Edwin Muir, “The refugees born for a land unknown”
published in Collected Poems, 1921–1958 (Faber, 1960)

20 June is World Refugee Day

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #refugees #WorldRefugeeDay #asylum #humanrights

Edwin Muir
‘The refugees born for a land unknown’

The refugees born for a land unknown
We have dismissed their wrongs, now dull and old,
And little judgment days lost in the dark.

‘I have fled through land and sea, blank land and sea,
Because my house is besieged by murderers
And I was wrecked in the ocean, crushed and swept,
Spilling salt angry tears on the salt waves,
My life waste water drawn down through a hole,
Yet lived. And now with alien eyes I see
The flowering trees on the unreal hills,
And in an English garden all afternoon
I watch the bees among the lavender.
Bees are at home, and think they have their place,
And I outside.
Footsteps on the stairs, two heavy, two light,
The door opens. Since then I remember nothing,
But this room in a place where no doors open.
I think the world died many years ago.’

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82d

Use no names. Roads
have been whited out,
redacted. Hone your oldest sense…

—Pippa Little, “For Refuge”
published in AIBLINS: New Scottish Political Poetry (Luath Press, 2016)

20 June is World Refugee Day

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldRefugeeDay #refugees #humanrights

For Refuge
Pippa Little

Use no names. Roads
have been whited out,
redacted. Hone your oldest sense.
Learn the wind,
memorise where it goes
bearing your odours. The truck-stops
are roofless churches.
Comma-birds on power lines
swollen by rain
fall away.
Comfort yourself,
there will be stars in the dark
travelling towards you,
smaller and smaller.
Trust the earth
with your bandaged feet,
the pockets sewn shut by your mother.
Carry only such things
as snowflakes, eyelashes,
for the future may not make you out.

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82d

I would like to tell her not to wear such flimsy shoes,
that rubble contains the whole spectrum of knowable
and unknowable dangers…

—Marjorie Lotfi, “Picture of Girl and Small Boy (Burij, Gaza, 2014)”
published in THE WRONG PERSON TO ASK (Bloodaxe Books, 2023)

20 June is World Refugee Day

Photo: REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly

https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/idUSRTR40EE6/undefined

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #refugees #WorldRefugeeDay #humanrights #Gaza

Picture of Girl and Small Boy (Burij, Gaza, 2014)
Marjorie Lotfi

I would like to tell her not to wear such flimsy shoes,
that rubble contains the whole spectrum of knowable
and unknowable dangers: sheets of metal ripped
to knife edge, live wires, bloated arms reaching

for light. Her hair, scraped back into a ponytail,
is open to sky; remnants of buildings filter down
one concrete chunk at a time, and the midday bells
of rockets ring out above her. She carries a boy

on her still narrow hips, his legs entwined around
her yellow dungarees. Like a rodeo rider, his left arm
grips her shoulder to steady himself, or her,
while his torso reels back and away; his body

is asking to slow down, to turn back. Instead,
her eyes comb the ground for a next step, fingers
of her free hand curled into a claw, as if
to frighten off what she somehow sees ahead.

A Palestinian girl carries a child across rubble from a building that police said was destroyed by an Israeli air strike, in the Burij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, August 1, 2014. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly.

Marjorie Lotfi's poem describes the picture in detail:

Picture of Girl and Small Boy (Burij, Gaza, 2014)
Marjorie Lotfi

I would like to tell her not to wear such flimsy shoes,
that rubble contains the whole spectrum of knowable
and unknowable dangers: sheets of metal ripped
to knife edge, live wires, bloated arms reaching

for light. Her hair, scraped back into a ponytail,
is open to sky; remnants of buildings filter down
one concrete chunk at a time, and the midday bells
of rockets ring out above her. She carries a boy

on her still narrow hips, his legs entwined around
her yellow dungarees. Like a rodeo rider, his left arm
grips her shoulder to steady himself, or her,
while his torso reels back and away; his body

is asking to slow down, to turn back. Instead,
her eyes comb the ground for a next step, fingers
of her free hand curled into a claw, as if
to frighten off what she somehow sees ahead.

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