Eggplant.place

45d

Leave, leave your well-loved nest,
Late swallow, and fly away.
Here is no rest
For hollowing heart and wearying wing.
Your comrades all have flown
To seek their southern paradise
Across the great earth’s downward sloping side,
And you are alone…

—Edwin Muir, “The Late Swallow”
first published in One Foot in Eden (Faber, 1956)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/late-swallow/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

The Late Swallow
by Edwin Muir

Leave, leave your well-loved nest,
Late swallow, and fly away.
Here is no rest
For hollowing heart and wearying wing.
Your comrades all have flown
To seek their southern paradise
Across the great earth’s downward sloping side,
And you are alone.
Why should you cling
Still to the swiftly ageing narrowing day?
Prepare;
Shake your pinions long untried
That now must bear you there where you would be
Through all the heavens of ice;
Till falling down the homing air
You light and perch upon the radiant tree.

ALT

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296d

I saw the dead upon St Laurence Wake
Sailing in beautiful Brimvald. They were young,
Younger than death and life, with a sweet tongue
I have heard in my blood before…

—“The Vikings”, by Olive Fraser (1909–1977) – born #OTD, 20 Jan, & a poet whose work was sadly neglected in her lifetime. A 🎂 🧵

1/6

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #womenwriters #OliveFraser #Vikings

Olive Fraser
1909-77

THE VIKINGS

King Haro's navy met on St Laurence Wake in 1263 at Ronaldsvo under the leadership of his great ship Brimvald

I saw the dead upon St Laurence Wake
Sailing in beautiful Brimvald. They were young,
Younger than death and life, with a sweet tongue
I have heard in my blood before,
Dreaming it was the wild gannets that make
Their comment upon Sulna-stapa shore.
I creid upon the dead, 'Why is your face
So beautiful in the regretless place?

'Surely among the dead there is no will
For dragon-necks of gold and for straight sails,
And Brimvald with the silver bitterns' tails
Is quiet under dark skerries now.'
'O we are loved among the living still,
We are forgiven among the dead. We plough
In the old narrows of the spirit. We
Have woven our wealth into your mystery.'

And I remembered words that I had heard
And never heard. And vessels that I knew
And thought were visions. The mute swans that flew
Over grey islands were like these
And yet were nothing. Once at Herlesferd
I saw a ship whose path on the green seas
Made joy to brindled sea-birds, and my breath
Was dangerous and scant, bitter like death.

'O if you died upon St Laurence Wake
Why are you beautiful and young,' I cried
'Like dreams of you I saw on a great tide
Lovelier and more young than I?
Even when I heard the wild white eagles take
Over the earth with their cruel minstrelsy
You were more light than I have ever been.'
They said, 'We are your Soul that you have seen.'

ALT

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296d

Creative Conversations: Rachelle Atalla
20 January, University of Glasgow & online – free

Rachelle Atalla is a Scottish-Egyptian novelist, short story writer & screenwriter. Her first novel, THE PHARMACIST, is now in development for film with Compact Pictures & the BFI. THIRSTY ANIMALS is her second novel & has been optioned by STV. Her most recent book is THE SALT FLATS

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-conversations-rachelle-atalla-tickets-1977613863301

#Scottish #literature #writing #screenwriting #dystopia #dystopianfiction

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60d

A huddle on the greasy street –
cars stop, nose past, withdraw –
dull glint on soles of tackety boots,
frayed rough blue trousers, nondescript coat
stretching back, head supported
in strangers’ arms…

—Edwin Morgan, “Death in Duke Street”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109967/centenary-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #EdwinMorgn #Glasgow

Death in Duke Street
by Edwin Morgan

A huddle on the greasy street –
cars stop, nose past, withdraw –
dull glint on soles of tackety boots,
frayed rough blue trousers, nondescript coat
stretching back, head supported
in strangers’ arms, a crowd collecting –
‘Whit’s wrang?’ ‘Can ye see’m?’
‘An auld fella, he’s had it.’
On one side, a young mother in a headscarf
is kneeling to comfort him, her three-year-old son
stands puzzled, touching her coat, her shopping-bag
spills its packages that people look at
as they look at everything. On the other side
a youth, nervous, awkwardly now
at the centre of attention as he shifts his arm
on the old man’s shoulders, wondering
what to say to him, glancing up at the crowd.
These were next to him when he fell,
and must support him into death.
He seems not to be in pain,
he is speaking slowly and quietly
but he does not look at any of them,
his eyes are fixed on the sky,
already he is moving out
beyond everything belonging.
As if he still belonged
they hold him very tight.

Only the hungry ambulance
howls for him through the staring squares.

ALT

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61d

The glitter of water and the wake…
Heading for University in Aberdeen.
It’s an autumn morning. I am seventeen…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Aberdeen University 1945–49 (1)”
published in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS, ed. by John Greening (Carcanet, 2021)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800170940/deer-on-the-high-hills/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Aberdeen #university #leavinghome #student #students

Aberdeen University 1945–49 (1)
by Iain Crichton Smith

The glitter of water and the wake…
Heading for University in Aberdeen.
It’s an autumn morning. I am seventeen.
Above the Isle of Skye the dawn’s a flag

of red infuriate ore. I see the train
for the first time ever steaming from the Kyle
beyond the screaming seagulls, in the smell
of salt and herring. There’s a tall sad crane.

The landscape, rich, harmonious, unwinds
its perfect symmetry: not the barren stone
and vague frail fences I have always known.
I hold my Homer steady in my hand.

All day we travel and at last dismount
at the busy station of that sparkling town.
A beggar with black glasses sitting down
on the hard stone holds out his cap. I count

the pennies in it. Should I freely give?
Or being more shameful than himself refrain?
His definite shadow is the day’s black stain.
How in such open weakness learn to live?

I turn away, the money in my hand,
profusely sweating, in that granite blaze.
Unknown, unlooked at, I pick up my case.
Everything’s glittering and transient.

ALT

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61d

Thou hast my kith and kin;
My childhood, youth, and manhood brave;
Thou hast that unforgotten grave
Within thy central din.
A sacredness of love and death
Dwells in thy noise and smoky breath.

—“Glasgow”, by Alexander Smith (1829–1867)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #19thcentury #Victorian #Glasgow

Glasgow
Alexander Smith

Sing, Poet, ’tis a merry world;
That cottage smoke is rolled and curled
In sport, that every moss
Is happy, every inch of soil;—
Before me runs a road of toil
With my grave cut across.
Sing, trailing showers and breezy downs—
I know the tragic hearts of towns.

City! I am true son of thine;
Ne’er dwelt I where great mornings shine
Around the bleating pens;
Ne’er by the rivulets I strayed,
And ne’er upon my childhood weighed
The silence of the glens.
Instead of shores where ocean beats,
I hear the ebb and flow of streets. . . .

Afar, one summer, I was borne;
Through golden vapours of the morn,
I heard the hills of sheep:
I trod with a wild ecstasy
The bright fringe of the living sea:
And on a ruined keep
I sat, and watched an endless plain
Blacken beneath the gloom of rain.

O fair the lightly sprinkled waste,
O’er which a laughing shower has raced!
O fair the April shoots!
O fair the woods on summer days,
While a blue hyacinthine haze
Is dreaming round the roots!
In thee, O city! I discern
Another beauty, sad and stern.

ALT

Draw thy fierce streams of blinding ore,
Smite on a thousand anvils, roar
Down to the harbour-bars;
Smoulder in smoky sunsets, flare
On rainy nights, while street and square
Lie empty to the stars.
From terrace proud to alley base,
I know thee as my mother’s face.

When sunset bathes thee in his gold,
In wreaths of bronze thy sides are rolled,
Thy smoke is dusty fire;
And from the glory round thee poured,
A sunbeam like an angel’s sword
Shivers upon a spire.
Thus have I watched thee, Terror! Dream!
While the blue Night crept up the stream . . .

But all these sights and sounds are strange;
Then wherefore from thee should I range?
Thou hast my kith and kin;
My childhood, youth, and manhood brave;
Thou hast that unforgotten grave
Within thy central din.
A sacredness of love and death
Dwells in thy noise and smoky breath.

ALT

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171d

Sit down & strap in: it’s going to be a long, wild Scottish literature 🧵…

What 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotsman was caught up in a South American civil war before he was 20? Wrote a book that inspired an Oscar-winning film? Met a runaway teenager in Paris & married her against the wishes of his family? Lost his ranch to raiding Apaches?

1/18

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #20thcentury #Victorian #Edwardian

A still from THE MISSION (1986). Robert De Niro, with a black beard and swept-back dark hair, stands in a haze of smoke in a jungle scene. He is dressed in a black shirt, and is holding a rapier out in front of him in his right hand. His left is on his hip, in a fencer's fighting stance. He looks unsmilingly along the length of his sword to whatever faces him.

ALT

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295d

chats in squirrel are limited
to a sort of Roman salute
foreleg extended then folded
open paw on breast as if to say
Look I take you in my open paw
and hold you to my heart
then it gets tricky…

—William Bonar, “SQRL”
published in OFFERING (Red Squirrel Press, 2015)

Happy #SquirrelAppreciationDay 🐿️ – 21 January – to all who celebrate

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #squirrel #squirrels #SquirrelAppreciationDay

SQRL
by William Bonar

chats in squirrel are limited
to a sort of Roman salute
foreleg extended then folded
open paw on breast as if to say
Look‍‍‍‍‍‍ I take you in my open paw
and hold you to my heart
then it gets tricky

the erect position fosters
rhetorical expansiveness

one paw clutches
the purple edge
of a senatorial toga
while the other describes
a democratic arc
enfolding all squirrels
to its furry bosom

Nuts it declaims
Nuts nuts nuts

ALT

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294d

Voices from the Archives: Mary, Burns & Lochhead
29 Jan, Perth. Tickets £8.50/£6

A panel discussion examining 3 manuscripts, each offering a powerful lens on Mary, Queen of Scots:

📜 her final letter, written just hours before her execution
🪶 Robert Burns' poetic tribute “Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots”
⌨️ Liz Lochhead's bold reimagining in her play Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off

https://www.perthshireboxoffice.com/whats-on/voices-from-the-archives-mary-burns-and-lochhead

#Scottish #literature #history #MaryQueenofScots #poetry #drama

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60d

How we could ever have come to this pass?
Is all we are asking…

“Question & Answer”, by James Findlay Hendry (1912–1986) – born #OTD, 12 September

With G.S. Fraser & Henry Treece, author, poet & translator J.F. Hendry was a contributor to the “New Apocalypse” poetic movement of the 1930s

1/2

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #warpoem #warpoetry #WW2

J. F. Hendry
Question and Answer

How we could ever have come to this pass?
Is all we are asking. Each of our
Bursts of anti-aircraft fire
Hangs a torn wound of questions in the air.

How we could ever, like cattle at grass,
Drift with shadowless clouds, unaware,
Into this era of lightnings and war?
There is no shelter, now or ever, from that answer.

ALT

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258d

Thon tree,
earthfast at the foot
of your Alpine meadow,

dark, with mossy branches,
– apple perhaps –

can you give it a message?
Can you please say spring
will be there soon?

—Kathleen Jamie, “Old Women”
published in THE BONNIEST COMPANIE (Picador, 2015)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/the-bonniest-companie/9781509801718

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #spring

Kathleen Jamie
Old Women

Thon tree,
earthfast at the foot
of your Alpine meadow,

dark, with mossy branches,
– apple perhaps –

can you give it a message?
Can you please say spring
will be there soon?

It’s creeping up the mountain
as though carried on an old woman’s back.

When we’re old women
we will fetch spring too.

You know the tree I mean.

ALT

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292d

StAnza 2026
13–15 March, St Andrews & online

Tickets are on sale for StAnza 2026, Scotland’s award-winning poetry festival dedicated to bringing poetry in all its forms & many languages to audiences around the world

https://stanzapoetry.org/festival/stanza-2026/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #festivals #StAndrews

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294d

But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred
A whole one, and my heart flies to my head,—

—from “Don Juan”, Canto X, by George Gordon, Lord Byron

The great Romantic poet George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron – Lord Byron – was born #OTD, 22 Jan, 1788

A 🎂 🧵

1/5

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Byron #LordByron #romantic #romanticism #18thcentury #19thcentury

from “Don Juan”, Canto X
George Gordon Byron

And all our little feuds, at least all mine,
Dear Jefferson, once my most redoubted foe
(As far as rhyme and criticism combine
To make such puppets of us things below),
Are over: Here's a health to 'Auld Lang Syne!'
I do not know you, and may never know
Your face—but you have acted on the whole
Most nobly, and I own it from my soul.

And when I use the phrase of 'Auld Lang Syne!'
'Tis not address'd to you—the more's the pity
For me, for I would rather take my wine
With you, than aught (save Scott) in your proud city.
But somehow,—it may seem a schoolboy's whine,
And yet I seek not to be grand nor witty,
But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred
A whole one, and my heart flies to my head,—

As 'Auld Lang Syne' brings Scotland, one and all,
Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear streams,
The Dee, the Don, Balgounie's brig's black wall,
All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams
Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their own pall,
Like Banquo's offspring;—floating past me seems
My childhood in this childishness of mine:
I care not—'t is a glimpse of 'Auld Lang Syne.'

And though, as you remember, in a fit
Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly,
I rail'd at Scots to show my wrath and wit,
Which must be own'd was sensitive and surly,
Yet 'tis in vain such sallies to permit,
They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early:
I 'scotch'd not kill'd' the Scotchman in my blood,
And love the land of 'mountain and of flood.'

ALT

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294d

Who Speaks Scots Where: What Crowdsourcing Reveals
2 February, Edinburgh Futures Institute – free

Jennifer Smith & Brian Aitken present findings from a new crowdsourced resource – Speak for Yersel – which sets out to map dialect use in Scots throughout Scotland

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/who-speaks-scots-where-what-crowdsourcing-reveals-tickets-1975120018143

#Scotland #Scottish #language #Scots #Scotslanguage #minoritylanguages #linguistics

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293d

Gin I was God, sittin’ up there abeen,
Weariet nae doot noo a’ my darg was deen,
Deaved wi’ the harps an’ hymns oonendin’ ringin’,
Tired o’ the flockin’ angels hairse wi’ singin’,
To some clood-edge I’d daunder furth an’, feth,
Look ower an’ watch hoo things were gyaun aneth…

—Charles Murray (1864–1941), “Gin I Was God”
published in THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF SCOTTISH VERSE, @canongatebooks 2021

https://canongate.co.uk/books/3267-the-golden-treasury-of-scottish-verse/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #Scots #Scotslanguage #god

Gin I Was God
Charles Murray

Gin I was God, sittin’ up there abeen,
Weariet nae doot noo a’ my darg was deen,
Deaved wi’ the harps an’ hymns oonendin’ ringin’,
Tired o’ the flockin’ angels hairse wi’ singin’,
To some clood-edge I’d daunder furth an’, feth,
Look ower an’ watch hoo things were gyaun aneth.
Syne, gin I saw hoo men I’d made mysel’
Had startit in to pooshan, sheet an’ fell,
To reive an’ rape, an’ fairly mak’ a hell
O’ my braw birlin’ Earth, – a hale week’s wark –
I’d cast my coat again, rowe up my sark,
An’, or they’d time to lench a second ark,
Tak’ bak my word an’ sen’ anither spate,
Droon oot the hale hypothec, dicht the sklate,
Own my mistak’, an’, aince I’d cleared the brod,
Start a’thing ower again, gin I was God.

ALT

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60d

THE CITY IS WILDER THAN YOU THINK
AND KINDER THAN YOU THINK. IT IS A
VALLEY AND YOU ARE A HORSE IN IT
IT IS A HOUSE AND YOU ARE A
CHILD IN IT SAFE AND WARM HERE
IN THE FIRE OF EACH OTHER

—Robert Montgomery, Light Poem (recycled sunlight)

https://www.robertmontgomery.org/recycledsunlightpoems

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #visualart #artpoetry #cities

A shop window in a city at night. The building is quite old, and there are drainpipes and cables coming down either side of the shop window. There's a flat above the shop, and there's a light on in one window. There are red, old-fashioned wrought-iron railings outside the shop window. The shop door says "WELCOME TO KK" and there's a sign reading "Sorry we're OPEN".

Above the shop window is a set of lights spelling out letters, set in front of a heart and under an arch of stars. The letters read

THE CITY IS WILDER THAN YOU THINK
AND KINDER THAN YOU THINK. IT IS A
VALLEY AND YOU ARE A HORSE IN IT
IT IS A HOUSE AND YOU ARE A
CHILD IN IT SAFE AND WARM HERE
IN THE FIRE OF EACH OTHER

ALT

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293d

One drops
in a bunker,
another on his doorstep,
Christmas morning, shovelling snow…

—Andrew Greig, “Norman’s Goodnight”
from This Life, This Life: New & Selected Poems 1976–2006 (Bloodaxe Books, 2006

Norman MacCaig (1910–1996) died #OTD, 23 Jan

https://poetryarchive.org/poem/normans-goodnight/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #NormanMacCaig

Norman’s Goodnight
by Andrew Greig

One drops
in a bunker,
another on his doorstep,
Christmas morning, shovelling snow.

When I go
may it be like that,
a short fall down and out
while busy in open air –

like a pigeon, say,
winging it across clear sky,
sways then plummets,
brought down by stray buckshot.

And may there be time
to murmur as I fold
some word of thanks
and letting go –

like the last time I saw MacCaig
standing at his door;
as I turned the stair
his hand came up, waved:

Ta-ta. Ta-ta.
Masterly concision –
‘Thank you’ and
‘Goodnight’ in one.

I hope to be
even briefer as I fall:

Ta –

ALT

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290d

Grant me, indulgent Heaven, that I may live,
To see the miscreants feel the pains they give;
Deal Freedom’s sacred treasures free as air,
Till Slave and Despot be but things that were.

—Robert Burns, “Lines Inscribed in a Lady’s Pocket Almanac”

#Scottish #literature #RobertBurns #BurnsNight #poem #poetry #18thcentury #liberty #justice #freedom

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207d

Happy birthday to Tim Curry – proven by ACTUAL SCIENCE to have given the pre-eminent screen portrayal of Long John Silver

From Braemar to Hollywood: The American Appropriation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Pirates
—Richard J. Hill & Laura Eidam, Humanities 2020, 9(1)

@litstudies

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/9/1/10

#Scottish #literature #RobertLouisStevenson #cinema #adaptation #TreasureIsland #Muppets #MuppetTreasureIsland #TimCurry

One obvious obstacle to physical authenticity is Silver’s leg: cut “close by the hip” in the text, all the actors to play him are bipedal; therefore, they all had to fold and secure their left legs in what must presumably be a very uncomfortable position, making the role physically challenging (Stevenson [1883] 2012, p. 85). Such an arrangement must also make moving like Stevenson’s Silver very difficult. Fleming accounts for this by using an action double for Beery, most clearly in his murder of Tom, allowing the audience to believe in his physical prowess. Newton maneuvers impressively on the crutch but does little to convince the viewer of any physical threat. This fact allows for film adaptations to further soften the Silver character as we will discuss in the next two sections: where Stevenson’s Silver appears to use his disfigurement to disguise his physical abilities, making him dangerous, film adaptations often use it to blunt any real threat. Charlton Heston, for example, is a menacing presence in the 1990 Turner Pictures adaptation, but his age and awkwardness of movement are a clear contrast with Wyeth’s dynamic, nimble Silver. With the possible exception of Tim Curry—who is younger and more agile than his cinematic counterparts—in the playful 1996 film Muppet Treasure Island, the Silver of the screen must rely more on his wits, his charm, and his presence of character, than on any physical threat he poses, in order to manipulate his crew, Jim, or Jim’s friends.

ALT

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97d

#OTD, 7 Aug, 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson boarded the SS Devonia to make the ten-day passage from Greenock to New York to pursue his thwarted relationship with Fanny Osbourne. In THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT he gives a vivid, sharp, & engaging account of his (impoverished) travels to & in America – read the first 5 chapters free 👇️

1/3

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #travelwriting #RobertLouisStevenson #emigration

Book cover

Robert Louis Stevenson
The Amateur Emigrant
From the Clyde to Sandy Hook
Chapters I to V

On a blue-grey background, fading from dark to light from bottom to top, horizontal lines of blue-green spirals representing waves cover the bottom half of the page. The top line of spirals are coloured white.

ALT

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207d

Quintessential Romantic Lord Byron – “half a Scot by birth, and bred / a whole one” – died #OTD, 19 April, 1824

Byron included this #poem in a letter to Thomas Moore from Venice in 1817, when Byron was feeling particularly shagged out after Carnevale…

1/4

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43845/so-well-go-no-more-a-roving

#Scottish #literature #Byron #LordByron #romanticism #poem #poetry #19thCentury

So we’ll go no more a-roving
George Gordon, Lord Byron

So we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we’ll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.

ALT

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291d

Atween November’s end and noo
there’s really nithin else tae do
but climb inside a brindlet coo
and dream o Spring,
fur Winter’s decked hur breist and broo
wi icy bling…

—W.N. Herbert, “Rabbie, Rabbie, Burning Bright”
published in OMNESIA (Remix) (Bloodaxe Books, 2013)

Warming up for Burns Night …

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/rabbie-rabbie-burning-bright/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #RobertBurns #BurnsNight #StandardHabbie #winter

Rabbie, Rabbie, Burning Bright
by W. N. Herbert

Atween November’s end and noo
there’s really nithin else tae do
but climb inside a brindlet coo
and dream o Spring,
fur Winter’s decked hur breist and broo
wi icy bling.

It feels like, oan St Andrae’s nicht,
thi sun went oot and gote sae ticht
he endit up in a braw fire fecht
wi some wee comet –
noo he’s layin low wi his punched-oot licht
aa rimmed wi vomit.

We too hae strachilt lik The Bruce
and hacked up turkey, duck and goose;
and let aa resolution loose
oan Hogmanay,
but waddle noo frae wark tae hoose
lyk dogs they spayed.

ALT

Each year fails tae begin thi same:
fae dregs o Daft Deys debt comes hame
and we gaither in depression’s wame
aa duty-crossed –
but Burns’s birthday is a flame
set tae Defrost.

Ye dinna need tae be Confucius
tae ken, if Dullness wad confuse us,
ye caa ‘Respite! Let’s aa get stocious –
And dinna nag us.
Grant us that globe of spice, thi luscious
Delight caaed “haggis”!’

That truffle o the North must be
dug frae the depths o January,
but cannae pass oor lips, nor we
cross Limbo’s border –
unless that passport, Poetry,
be quite in order.

Sae thi daurkest deys o thi haill damn year
can dawn in yawns baith dreich an drear –
sae thi Taxman’s axe is at wir ear
fur his Returns?
We Scots sall neither dreid nor fear
but read wir Burns.

ALT

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291d

Beacon Book Festival 2026
20–22 February, Greenock

The inaugural Beacon Book Festival will take place next month at Beacon Arts Centre, welcoming some of the UK’s finest writers, poets and storytellers to Inverclyde for three inspiring days of discussion, performance and creativity.

https://www.beaconartscentre.co.uk/beacon-book-festival/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #storytelling #writers #Greenock #Inverclyde

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Level Vibes: Burns Night 2026

Level Vibes spotlights the relationship between Scotland & Jamaica through the creativity of Jamaican poets, curated by Jamaican artist Fabian Thomas.

You can read the poems online, as well as articles examining Burns’s attitudes to slavery & Scotland’s connections with Jamaica during the poet’s lifetime

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/burns-night-2026/

#Scottish #literature #Scotland #Jamaica #RobertBurns #poetry #slavery #18thcentury