Eggplant.place

110d

Well how do you do, Private William McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?
And I’ll rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
I’ve been walking all day long, and I’m nearly done…

—Eric Bogle, “No Man’s Land”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxwBg3X3gBI

#RemembranceSunday #Scottish #literature #song #WW1

No Man’s Land (The Green Fields of France)
Eric Bogle

Well how do you do, Private William McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?
And I’ll rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
I’ve been walking all day long, and I’m nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,
Well, I hope you died quick, and I hope you died clean,
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they beat the drums slowly,
Did they sound the fife lowly,
Did the rifles fire o’er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sing The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
And though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you always nineteen?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame.

Did they beat the drums slowly,
Did they sound the fife lowly,
Did the rifles fire o’er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sing The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

ALT

Well the sun’s shining now on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plough
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard it’s still No Man’s Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man,
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

Did they beat the drums slowly,
Did they sound the fife lowly,
Did the rifles fire o’er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sing The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And I can’t help but wonder, now Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here, know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the “The Cause?”
You really believed that this war would end wars?
The suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Did they beat the drums slowly,
Did they sound the fife lowly,
Did the rifles fire o’er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sing The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

Did the bugles sing The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

ALT

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110d

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

“When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead”
by Charles Hamilton Sorley

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.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, “They are dead.” Then add thereto,
“Yet many a better one has died before.”
Then, scanning all the o’ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.

ALT

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110d

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

Violet Jacob
“To A.H.J.”

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.

On Angus, in the autumn nights,‍‍
‍‍‍‍The ice-green light shall lie.
Beyond the trees the Northern Lights‍‍
‍‍‍‍Slant on the belts of sky.

But miles on miles from Scottish soil‍‍
‍‍‍‍You sleep, past war and scaith,
Your country’s freedman, loosed from toil.‍‍
‍‍‍‍In honour and in faith.

For Angus held you in her spell,
‍‍‍‍Her Grampians, faint and blue,
Her ways, the speech you knew so well,
‍‍‍‍Were half the world to you.

Yet rest, my son; our souls are those‍‍
‍‍‍‍Nor time nor death can part,
And lie you proudly, folded close‍‍
‍‍‍‍To France’s deathless heart.

ALT

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110d

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

Curaidhean
Somhairle MacGill-Eain

Chan fhaca mi Lannes aig Ratasbon
no MacGillFhinnein aig Allt Èire
no Gill-Ìosa aig Cùil Lodair,
ach chunnaic mi Sasannach san Èipheit.

Fear beag truagh le gruaidhean pluiceach
is glùinean a’ bleith a chèile,
aodann guireanach gun tlachd ann –
còmhdach an spioraid bu trèine.

Cha robh buaidh air ‘san taigh-òsta
’n àm nan dòrn a bhith gan dùnadh’,
ach leòmhann e ri uchd a’ chatha,
anns na frasan guineach mùgach.

Thàinig uair-san leis na sligean,
leis na spealgan-iarainn beàrnach,
anns an toit is anns an lasair,
ann an crith is maoim na h-àraich.

Thàinig fios dha san fhrois pheilear
e bhith gu spreigearra ’na dhiùlnach:
is b’ e sin e fhad ’s a mhair e,
ach cha b’ fhada fhuair e dh’ùine.

Chùm e ghunnachan ris na tancan,
a ’ bocail le sgreuch shracaidh stàirnich
gus an d’ fhuair e fhèin mun stamaig
an deannal ud a chuir ri làr e,
beul sìos an gainmhich ’s an greabhal,
gun diog o ghuth caol grànda.

Cha do chuireadh crois no meadal
ri uchd no ainm no g’ a chàirdean:
cha robh a bheag dhe fhòirne maireann,
’s nan robh cha bhiodh am facal làidir;
’s co-dhiù, ma sheasas ursann-chatha,
leagar mòran air a shàillibh
gun dùil ri cliù, nach iarr am meadal
no cop sam bith à beul na h-àraich.

Chunnaic mi gaisgeach mòr à Sasainn,
fearachan bochd nach laigheadh sùil air;
cha b’ Alasdair à Gleanna Garadh –
is thug e gal beag air mo shùilean.

ALT

Heroes
Translator: Sorley MacLean

I did not see Lannes at Ratisbon
nor MacLennan at Auldearn
nor Gillies MacBain at Culloden,
but I saw an Englishman in Egypt.

A poor little chap with chubby cheeks
and knees grinding each other,
pimply unattractive face –
garment of the bravest spirit.

He was not a hit ‘in the pub
in the time of the fists being closed,’
but a lion against the breast of battle,
in the morose wounding showers.

His hour came with the shells,
with the notched iron splinters,
in the smoke and flame,
in the shaking and terror of the battlefield.

Word came to him in the bullet shower
that he should be a hero briskly,
and he was that while he lasted,
but it wasn’t much time he got.

He kept his guns to the tanks,
bucking with tearing crashing screech,
until he himself got, about the stomach,
that biff that put him to the ground,
mouth down in sand and gravel,
without a chirp from his ugly high-pitched voice.

No cross or medal was put to his
chest or to his name or to his family;
there were not many of his troop alive,
and if there were their word would not be strong.
And at any rate, if a battle post stands,
many are knocked down because of him,
not expecting fame, not wanting a medal
or any froth from the mouth of the field of slaughter.

I saw a great warrior of England,
a poor manikin on whom no eye would rest;
no Alasdair of Glen Garry;
and he took a little weeping to my eyes.

ALT

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109d

Call for Papers
Regional Perspectives, Planetary Reach: Themes, Genres, Forms of Narration in Contemporary Irish & Scottish Fiction
28–29 May 2026, Università di Naploli L’Orientale, Italy

The European Anglophone literary scene has seen a growing prominence of Scottish & Irish fiction. This conference will look at the latest trends in fiction, poetry, drama, film, TV, digital media, & critical theory

@litstudies

https://sites.google.com/view/irsconference/home-page

#Scottish #Irish #literature #CallForPapers

Edited 109d ago

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110d

He lacks the ordnance of words.
A self-portrait shows
stitches where his mouth should be;
eyes like empty casings.
He left a part of himself in the desert,
this ultra-Marine…

—Sandra Ireland, “Ultramarine”
published in New Writing Scotland 36 (2018)

#RemembranceSunday #Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #trauma

Sandra Ireland
Ultramarine

Trauma can affect the non-verbal
part of the brain. Art can free feelings of loss
and grief and pain from the subconscious,
aiding vocalisation.

He lacks the ordnance of words.
A self-portrait shows
stitches where his mouth should be;
eyes like empty casings.
He left a part of himself
in the desert,
this ultra-Marine,
the part which glows
Tyrian Purple.

Now he is bone black inside;
loaded with dark pigment;
aggregates
to be ground down and
made smooth with linseed words.
Time heals.
Give yourself time.

Time is just a jumbled mix
on his palette;
there was a lot of ochre out there,
and green earth and
sometimes, now he’s home,
he feels the trickle
of warm vermilion
seeping into
his boots.

ALT

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109d

Ravens are kekklin’ prophecies o’ woe,
Pyots in black an’ white spiel superstitions,
The rooks mak’ bedlam i’ the elms below,
An’ saft-winged hoolets plan their midnicht missions…

—Helen Cruickshank, “Corstorphine Woods”
pulished in A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS (ASL, 2017)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #naturewriting

Helen Cruickshank
Corstorphine Woods

Ravens are kekklin’ prophecies o’ woe,
Pyots in black an’ white spiel superstitions,
The rooks mak’ bedlam i’ the elms below,
An’ saft-winged hoolets plan their midnicht missions.

Amang the haws an’ brambles whinchats clink,
The blue-tits flit amang their ferny covers,
The greedy gulls ahint the ploo-tail sink,
An’ hidden cushats croodle low like lovers.

Heich i’ the frosty air, uneirdly cries
Tell that a gaggle o’ wild geese are flightin’—
Luik! there they are against the parchment skies,
Like movin’ brush o’ ancient Chinese writin’.

Near hame, the ruif-heid raws o’ stirlins haud
Their evenin’ guild o’ scandal and o’ chatter,
And sparrows, randy gossips, rogue or jaud,
Scavenge their hindmost crumb wi’ fuss an’ clatter.

And, as I roond the corner, best of a’,
The mavis, singing on my gavel wa’—
Happy am I, altho’ I bide my lane,
To ha’e a singin’ hert that’s a’ my ain.

ALT

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109d

Ethnomusicologist, photographer, folklorist, & scholar Margaret Fay Shaw (1903–2004) was born #OTD, 9 Nov. She gave up a privileged upbringing & classical music training in 1920s New York to help build the first proper archive of traditional Hebridean song & folklore

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rmks

#Scottish #literature #music #song #folklore #Hebrides #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #ethnology #photography

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106d

Am I really home? A Journey Through the Literary Voices of Italian Scottish Women
25 Nov, Edinburgh – free, ticketed

Through storytelling, poetry, & prose, four widely published Italian Scottish women writers will describe their diverse journeys of navigating, rooting, & belonging

https://iicedimburgo.esteri.it/en/gli_eventi/calendario/am-i-really-home-a-journey-through-the-literary-voices-of-italian-scottish-women/

#Scottish #literature #ScottishItalian #identity #culturalidentity #belonging #womenwriters

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106d

“In crime, as in all life, nothing is fixed or certain. Put another way, it is part of the mystery of being, which has its origin in religious faith, & Stevenson’s stories abound in mysteries”

SINS & FOLLIES
Three Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson

🗡️ “A Lodging for the Night”
🪞 “Markheim”
💀 “The Body-Snatcher”

Download the free ebook

@bookstodon

1/4

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/sins-and-follies-2/

#Scottish #literature #RobertLouisStevenson #ShortStories #CrimeFiction #19thcentury #Victorian #gothic #RLSDay

Book cover

Sins and Follies

Three stories
by
Robert Louis Stevenson

ALT

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106d

“It is an RLS hallmark, the quicksilver evolution of thought and the fabular turn, the victory of original perception”

—Amdrew O’Hagan stays overnight in Robert Louis Stevenson’s childhood home, 17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh – via the London Review of Books

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n01/andrew-o-hagan/diary

#Scottish #literature #RobertLouisStevenson #Edinburgh #RLSDay

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108d

Some one was singing
Up a twisty stair,
A fragment of a song,
One sweet, spring day,
When twelve o’clock was ringing,
Through the sunny square…

—Marion Angus (1865–1946), “Remembrance Day”
first published in THE LILT AND OTHER VERSES (1922)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoetry #WW1 #RemembranceDay

Remembrance Day
Marion Angus

Some one was singing
Up a twisty stair,
A fragment of a song,
One sweet, spring day,
When twelve o’clock was ringing,
Through the sunny square—

‘There was a lad baith frank and free,
Cam’ doon the bonnie banks o’ Dee
Wi’ tartan plaid and buckled shoon,
An’ he’ll come nae mair to oor toon.—

‘He dwells within a far countree,
Where great ones do him courtesie,
They’ve gien him a golden croon,
An’ he’ll come nae mair to oor toon.’—

No one is singing
Up the twisty stair.
Quiet as a sacrament
The November day.

Can’t you hear it swinging,
The little ghostly air?—
Hear it sadly stray
Through the misty square,
In and out a doorway,
Up a twisty stair—
Tartan plaid and buckled shoon,
He’ll come nae mair to oor toon.

ALT

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108d

Hamish Henderson (1919–2002) – poet, soldier, intellectual, activist, songwriter – was born #OTD, 11 Nov. A hugely important figure in Scottish culture, Henderson fought in North Africa & Italy in WW2. A 🎂🧵

There were no gods and precious few heroes…
—“Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica”

1/10

#Scottish #literature #HamishHenderson #20thcentury #culture #poetry #poem #warpoetry #WW2 #RemembranceDay

Hamish Henderson
from Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica

FIRST ELEGY
End of a Campaign

There are many dead in the brutish desert, who lie uneasy
among the scrub in this landscape of half-wit
stunted ill-will. For the dead land is insatiate
and necrophilous. The sand is blowing about still.
Many who for various reasons, or because of mere unanswerable compulsion, came here
and fought among the clutching gravestones, shivered and sweated,
cried out, suffered thirst, were stoically silent, cursed
the spittering machine-guns, were homesick for Europe
and fast embedded in quicksand of Africa agonised and died.
And sleep now. Sleep here the sleep of the dust.

There were our own, there were the others.
Their deaths were like their lives, human and animal.
There were no gods and precious few heroes.
What they regretted when they died had nothing to do with race and leader, realm indivisible,
laboured Augustan speeches or vague imperial heritage.
(They saw through that guff before the axe fell.) Their longing turned to
the lost world glimpsed in the memory of letters:
an evening at the pictures in the friendly dark,
two knowing conspirators smiling and whispering secrets; or else
a family gathering in the homely kitchen
with Mum so proud of her boys in uniform: their thoughts trembled
between moments of estrangement, and ecstatic moments
of reconciliation: and their desire

ALT

crucified itself against the unutterable shadow of someone
whose photo was in their wallets.
Then death made his incision.

There were our own, there were the others.
Therefore, minding the great word of Glencoe’s
son, that we should not disfigure ourselves
with villainy of hatred; and seeing that all
have gone down like curs into anonymous silence,
I will bear witness for I knew the others.
Seeing that littoral and interior are alike indifferent
and the birds are drawn again to our welcoming north
why should I not sing them, the dead, the innocent?

ALT

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105d

Norman MacCaig (1910–1996) was born #OTD, 14 November. A self-described “Zen Calvinist”, when asked how long it took him to write a poem he would reply “one cigarette – or two for a long one”

A 🎂🧵

“Toad”
published in THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)

1/12

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/the-poems-of-norman-maccaig/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #NormanMacCaig

Toad
by Norman MacCaig

Stop looking like a purse. How could a purse
squeeze under the rickety door and sit,
full of satisfaction, in a man’s house?

You clamber towards me on your four corners –
right hand, left foot, left hand, right foot.

I love you for being a toad,
for crawling like a Japanese wrestler,
and for not being frightened.

I put you in my purse hand, not shutting it,
and set you down outside directly under
every star.

A jewel in your head? Toad,
you’ve put one in mine,
a tiny radiance in a dark place.

ALT

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106d

John Maclean: All that life can give us
19 Nov, University of Stirling – free

Author & poet Henry Bell will discuss his creative & historical work around Scottish socialist John Maclean, followed by an open archive and poetry reading

#Scottish #literature #poetry #history #Labourhistory #socialism #RedClydeside #JohnMaclean

A striking black, red, and white poster for the event

JOHN MACLEAN: ALL THAT LIFE CAN GIVE US.
A TALK BY HENRY BELL

Archives and Special Collections and the Creative Histories Research Group present a talk and poetry reading with award-winning author Henry Bell on
Scottish socialist John Maclean

WEDNESDAY 19* NOVEMBER
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
SYMPOSIUM JISC HUB LEVEL 3, 3-4PM
POETRY READING LEVEL 2, 4-5PM
REFRESHMENTS PROVIDED

ALT

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1y

A birthday 🧵 for Violet Jacob (1863–1946) – poet, novelist, short story writer, & key figure in the 20th-century Scottish renaissance & #Scots language revival – born #OTD, 1 September

#Scottish #literature #Scotslanguage #19thCentury #20thcentury #WomenWriters
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https://www.scottishwomenwritersontheweb.net/writers-a-to-z/violet-jacob

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106d

The Man Who Gave Away His Birthday – a Useless Information podcast

Robert Louis Stevenson was born #OTD, 13 November – but it’s not, strictly speaking, his birthday: in 1891 he gave the day to Annie Ide, the 14-year-old daughter of the US Commissioner to Samoa, who was unfortunate enough to have been born on Christmas Day

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https://uselessinformation.org/annie-louisa-ide-cockran/

#Scottish #literature #19thCentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #RLSDay

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102d

Tales of a Grandmother: Female Literary Agency & its Echoes in Scotland’s Cultural Memory in the Age of Scott
25 Nov, Glasgow University & online. Free

Walter Scott’s shadow eclipsed most of his contemporary writers in Scotland’s cultural memory of the early 19th century. Leonie Jungen investigates CLAN-ALBIN by Christian Isobel Johnstone (1781–1857), published one year after Scott’s WAVERLEY

@litstudies

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/leonie-jungen-tales-of-a-grandmother-tickets-1700991755129

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #WalterScott #womenwriters

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104d

McIntosh Lecture: “Scots as a Cinderella Language”
9 December, Glasgow – free

Professor Joanna Kopaczyk-McPherson will ask how has the story of Scots been told, & what are the perceptions created.

This lecture is sponsored by the Scottish Text Society. All are welcome to attend.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mcintosh-lecture-scots-as-a-cinderella-language-tickets-1968052449856

#Scottish #Scots #language #Scotslanguage #minoritylanguage

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101d

Look now, look quick – a shooting star!
Make your wish! It’s very far
From here to where the active light
Set out and streaked across a night
In Glasgow’s greatly dark November…

—Edwin Morgan, “Leonids”
in the London Review of Books, June 2000

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n12/edwin-morgan/four-poems

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #astronomy #leonids #meteor #EdwinMorgan

Leonids
by Edwin Morgan

Look now, look quick – a shooting star!
Make your wish! It’s very far
From here to where the active light
Set out and streaked across a night
In Glasgow’s greatly dark November
To die there, a supernal ember.
What was your wish? You wanted more?
It’s granted! Up there is a store
Of light. It’s breaking now in showers
Not of stars but meteors,
Spark after spark, scattering, dying,
You could send your wishes flying
In thousands, born, reborn, delighting
To be part of that bright sighting
Which disappears and yet appears
Again in our unlonely years.

ALT

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103d

Outlaw, fiddler, & folk hero James Macpherson (c.1675–1700) was hanged #OTD, 16 November, for being Romani. Prior to his execution Macpherson composed his famous “Rant”. Macpherson sang this lament on the gallows & smashed his fiddle before meeting his fate

1/7

https://blog.historicenvironment.scot/2022/06/the-loss-of-a-son-jamie-macpherson-and-his-gypsy-heritage/

#Scottish #literature #history #18thcentury #earlymodern #Romani #poem #poetry #song #folksong

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103d

Don Roberto: the Adventure of Being Cunninghame Graham
18 Nov, Carnoustie – free

Jamie Jauncey talks about his extraordinary great-great-uncle Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham – traveller, adventurer, politician, writer, etc. etc. – & asks why RBCG is so overlooked today

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/don-roberto-the-adventure-of-being-cunninghame-graham-tickets-1674565473409

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #20thcentury

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103d

Elspeth Barker (1940–2022) was born #OTD, 16 Nov

Maggie O’Farrell called Barker’s classic O CALEDONIA “one of those books you proselytize about… I once decided to become friends with someone on the sole basis that she named [it] as her favourite book”

A 🎂🧵

1/4

https://lithub.com/maggie-ofarrell-on-elspeth-barkers-modern-scottish-classic-o-caledonia/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #gothic #comingofage

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101d

Smoke in the woods
like someone walking in a silent film
beside the tracks…

—John Burnside, “Signal Stop, Near Horsley”
published in SELECTED POEMS (Cape, 2006)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #winter #JohnBurnside

Signal Stop, Near Horsley
John Burnside

Smoke in the woods
like someone walking in a silent film
beside the tracks.

A shape I recognise – not smoke, or not just smoke,
and not just snow on hazels
or fox-trails from the platform to the trees,

but winter, neither friend
nor stranger, like the girl I sometimes glimpse

at daybreak near the crossing, in a dress
of sleet and berries, gazing at the train.

ALT

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101d

The St  Andrews Chronicles, one of the most important manuscript histories of Scotland, is going on public display for the first time in its 500-year history. The book will be on display at University of St Andrews Wardlaw Museum from 21 November to 7 December

https://news.st-andrews.ac.uk/archive/500-year-old-history-of-scotland-on-public-display-for-the-first-time/

#Scottish #literature #history #16thcentury #manuscript #BookHistory