Eggplant.place

1y

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.’

ALT

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1y

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.

ALT

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1y

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.

ALT

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.

ALT

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205d

Live Literature: Folklore of Kintyre
26 Feb, online – free

Join author & storyteller Dougie Strang for an evening of folklore from Kintyre & wider Argyll. From Campbeltown Museum, this online event highlights aspects of heritage that cannot be easily represented through physical objects alone.

This event is open to anyone interested in the folklore, history, & culture of Argyll & Kintyre, including Gaelic.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/live-literature-folklore-of-kintyre-tickets-1982672868923

#Scottish #literature #folklore #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #Argyll

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1y

Frae the broo o’ a brae I saw them gang,
I saw them hirple to a lanesome shore.
I saw them pass abune the ferly seals
Withouten keel and sail and oar…

—William Jeffrey, “The Refugees”
Published in A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS (ASL, 2017)

20 June is World Refugee Day

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

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

William Jeffrey
The Refugees

‘Arise and flee into Egypt’

‘There’s a carline walkin’ the road ootby,
A body wi’ hair o’ the streekit snaw,
And an auld man daunders at her side,
A chiel that’s laggie and bent in twa.’

‘They maun be folk frae a fremit toun.
Bid them come in and bide a wee.’
Sae the carline and the auld man came
And supp’d guid brose anent the swee.

I speer’d the taen, and I speer’d the tither,
And scant the answer did I get—
But O, the licht in their eldren e’en
Shone frae some gouden unkenned yett.

Quo’ the carline frail, ‘There’s hame nae mair
In kintras raxt on the crookit sword’;
But the bodach murmured, ‘Nay, there’s hame
Where folks are free wi’ the kindly word.

‘Natheless,’ quo’ she, ‘gang west, my son,
Westlins to isles o’ Bride and the sea.’
Syne they rose and quaitlike went frae the door
And steppit west by the flowery lea.

Frae the broo o’ a brae I saw them gang,
I saw them hirple to a lanesome shore.
I saw them pass abune the ferly seals
Withouten keel and sail and oar.

I saw them gang in a siller glore,
Walkin’ the sea in’ a calm sae still—
The braid eard faulded like a rose
And Bethlehem gloss’d an island hill.

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1y

Fade then, light; but longing never will.
Midsummer makes the west spectacular
and even gives its last glow a show
of reluctance, as if it had postponed
midnight…

—Edwin Morgan, “21 June”
Published in CATHURES (Carcanet, 2002)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781857546170/cathures/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #midsummer #EdwinMorgan

Edwin Morgan
21 June

Fade then, light; but longing never will.
Midsummer makes the west spectacular
and even gives its last glow a show
of reluctance, as if it had postponed
midnight. But midnight is too faithful.
You're back among the black, the black,
you're down and fit to drown, to drown,
you're padding into nightmare town.
You haven't got a house, a bed-light,
there are no clocks or telephones out there,
you are on your own, you have a large panic
waiting to break through your chest, you are panting,
you count, as it arrives, each brimming pang.
What a clutch of sheets! What a parody of pain!

The longest day, the night is not so long.
You fling back the curtains, the morning sky
is like a meadow. What is it you want?
I don't know. You cannot walk there. No.
So what do you want? The morning, perhaps,
and then I want the day, another day.

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1y

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day…

—Robert Louis Stevenson, “Bed in Summer”
published in A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES (1885)

#Scottish #literature #poem 3poetry #summer #kidlit #19thcentury #Victorian #Edinburgh #RobertLouisStevenson

Bed in Summer
by Robert Louis Stevenson

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

ALT

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1y

My seventy-seven-year-old father
put his reading glasses on
to help my mother do the buttons
on the back of her dress…

—“George Square”, by Jackie Kay
LIFE MASK (Bloodaxe, 2005)

Hear Jackie Kay read this poem on the Poetry Archive:

https://poetryarchive.org/poem/george-square/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #peace

George Square
by Jackie Kay

My seventy-seven-year-old father
put his reading glasses on
to help my mother do the buttons
on the back of her dress.
‘What a pair the two of us are!’
my mother said, ‘Me with my sore wrist,
you with your bad eyes, your soft thumbs!’

And off they went, my two parents
to march against the war in Iraq,
him with his plastic hips, her with her arthritis
to congregate at George Square where the banners
waved at each other like old friends, flapping,
where they’d met for so many marches over their years,
for peace on earth, for pity’s sake, for peace, for peace.

ALT

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1y

I can see da rüfs aa taekit, an da hens aroond da door;
Fok kerryin twartree paets hame, an rigs delled every voar.
Aa da lums ir reekin, an I hear da happy soonds
O peerie bairns skirlin, as dey play dem ower da toons…

—“Da Clearance”, by Rhoda Bulter (1929–94), born #OTD, 15 July

A 🎂🧵 – 1/3

Listen to Rhoda Bulter reading “Da Clearance” here

https://www.shetlanddialect.org.uk/da-clearance

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #Shetland #Shetlandic

Da Clearance
Rhoda Bulter

I can see da rüfs aa taekit, an da hens aroond da door;
Fok kerryin twartree paets hame, an rigs delled every voar.
Aa da lums ir reekin, an I hear da happy soonds
O peerie bairns skirlin, as dey play dem ower da toons.

I see eens sittin roond da fire, an twartree mair oot by;
Sookin infants at da breest, an weemen gjaan ta cry.
Da tochtfil, tried faces o dem at’s lived ower lang;
Fractious bairns feytin sleep, an sensin somethin wrang.

I hear a lood, lood knockin, an da crump o monny feet;
Men's voices raised in anger, an da bairns start to greet.
I see da fok aa girded oot afore da laandloard’s men;
An aa da bits a things dey hed, fired ower da briggy-stane.

I see da bare waas staandin, an aa da laand lie green;
Lang syne da fire wis slokkit, an monny a year is geen.
Noo dey aa hae equal portions o aert ta tak dir sleep.
Tell me, wis it wirt it aa for twartree extry sheep?

ALT

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1y

It is a land of wee
hard men and all I
am wanted for is to
stand and cheer…

Prof Alan Riach considers the life & work of the poet & playwright Joan Ure (1918–1978) – born #OTD, 22 June

1/6

https://www.thenational.scot/news/17455955.joan-ure-the-scots-poet-and-playwright-who-set-a-precedent/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poet #drama #playwright #20thcentury #womenwriters

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1y

He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.

And another, and another.
He couldn’t stop…

—Norman MacCaig, “Small Boy”
Published in The Poems of Norman MacCaig, Birlinn 2011

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #NormanMacCaig

Text of a poem, dated July 1985

Small boy
by Norman MacCaig

He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.

And another, and another.
He couldn’t stop.

He wasn’t trying to fill the sea.
He wasn’t trying to empty the beach.

He was just throwing away,
nothing else but.

Like a kitten playing
he was practising for the future

when there’ll be so many things
he’ll want to throw away

if only his fingers will unclench
and let them go.

ALT

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1y

Cosmic ceilidh

Hundreds of scientists are set to perform a new Scottish country dance inspired by the ripples in spacetime whose existence was first theorised by Albert Einstein.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow teamed up with the culture and research organisation Science Ceilidh to develop a dance to mark the 10th anniversary of the historic first detection of gravitational waves.

https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_1195038_en.html

#Scottish #culture #dance #physics #spacetime #GravitationalWave

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1y

Schyr Hanry myssit the noble king…

Robert I, King of Scots, killed Sir Henry de Bohun in single combat on the first day of the Battle of Bannockburn #OTD, 23 June 1314. The epic vernacular poem “The Brus” by John Barbour (c.1320–1395) describes the event

1/3

https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/critical/aboutus/resources/stella/projects/starn/poetry/the-brus/book-12/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #medieval #14thcentury #history #MiddleAges #Bannockburn #epic #vernacular #poem #Scots #Scotslanguage

Text is too long for ALT-text – however full text can be found via the link, lines 25 to 85.

Image description: “Bruce and de Bohun”, by John Duncan (1866–1945), Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum. King Robert I, wearing chain mail, with a gold circlet around his helmet, and a flowing red-gold cloak and a surcoat bearing the Scottish lion rampant (red, on a yellow background) , stands up in the stirrups of the grey horse he is riding. He holds the reins tightly in his left hand and wields a battle-axe in his right. Sir Henry de Bohun, with golden plate armour and a flowing red cloth tied to his helm, rides past, his long lance missing the king. He is crouched low, almost seeming to bow, his head lined up for the blow from the king's axe.

ALT

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1y

She’s goat her legs oot –
her foldin plastic chair
oan the gress at Glesga Green –
an her airms an enough
creamy dimpled bosom
tae please Renoir…

—Sheila Templeton, “Glesga Fair”
published in Songs of Other Places: New Writing Scotland 32 (ASL, 2014)

Happy Fair Weekend to all the Glasgow Fairies!

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #Glasgow #GlasgowFair

Glesga Fair
Sheila Templeton

She’s goat her legs oot –
her foldin plastic chair
oan the gress at Glesga Green –
an her airms an enough
creamy dimpled bosom
tae please Renoir;
bra straps oan show,
frock lirkit richt up
ower her knees
sittin lik a mannie
legs weel splayed as if
tae accommodate
magnificent baws –
but it’s no that.
It’s tae mak room
mak a space
for her belly,
lovely big roon
wumman’s belly
growthie in the sun.

ALT

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1y

#OTD, 24 June, in 1314, the Scottish army under King Robert I destroyed a much larger English invasion force at Bannockburn, in one of the most decisive battles in medieval history. In 1793 Robert Burns composed “Scots Wha Hae”, originally entitled “Robert Bruce’s March To Bannockburn”

⚔️🧵

1/5

#Scottish #literature #Bannockburn #BattleofBannockburn #14thcentury #medieval #history #18thcentury #RobertBurns

Poem: "Scots Wha Hae", by Robert Burns

(tune: Hey, Tutti Tatie)

Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed‍‍
‍‍Or to victorie!

Now’s the day, and now’s the hour:
See the front o’ battle lour,
See approach proud Edward’s power— ‍‍
‍‍Chains and slaverie!

Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha can fill a coward’s grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?—‍‍
‍‍Let him turn, and flee!

Wha for Scotland’s king and law
Freedom’s sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand or freeman fa’, ‍‍
‍‍Let him follow me!

By Oppression’s woes and pains,
By your sons in servile chains,
We will drain our dearest veins ‍‍
‍‍But they shall be free!

Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty’s in every blow!—
‍‍Let us do or die!

ALT

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1y

I hate midsummer in the north.
There’s no night to speak of,
just day in and day in
with maybe a slight hesitancy
about two o’clock in the morning…

—Alasdair Maclean, “I Hate Midsummer in the North”
published in From the Wilderness (Gollancz, 1973)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #midsummer

I Hate Midsummer in the North
by Alasdair Maclean

I hate midsummer in the north.
There’s no night to speak of,
just day in and day in
with maybe a slight hesitancy
about two o’clock in the morning.

The sun’s at work continually,
zooming in from some part of the sky,
at some angle or another. In time
it penetrates the thickest skull. In time
it levels up the most forbidding brow.

Light pours down. It makes thing clear.
I see there’s only one world
after all, and it’s a hot one
and a bright one. My hayfield
curls up at the corners. My lips, too.

While the days swagger, elbow one another,
I wait, with what sadness I can muster.
This white weather doesn’t suit me,
I think. I get fatter all the time.
For weeks I live off my stored darkness.

ALT

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1y

Here lies our land: every airt
Beneath swift clouds, glad glints of sun,
Belonging to none but itself…

—Kathleen Jamie, “Here lies our land”

This poem was commissioned in 2014 to mark the 700th anniversary of the battle of Bannockburn – fought #OTD, 24 June, 1314. The poem is inscribed on the Bannockburn monument.

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/here-lies-our-land/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Bannockburn #BattleofBannockburn

Here lies our land
Kathleen Jamie

Here lies our land: every airt
Beneath swift clouds, glad glints of sun,
Belonging to none but itself.

We are mere transients, who sing
Its westlin’ winds and fernie braes,
Northern lights and siller tides,

Small folk playing our part.
‘Come all ye’, the country says,
You win me, who take me most to heart.

ALT

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193d

The Kirk Sessions: an evening of poetry & music
3 April, Kirriemuir. Tickets £12/£10

Poetry from Kathleen Jamie, Don Paterson, John Glenday, Lesley Harrison & Lisa Brockwell, with music from David Ogilvy & Don Paterson

https://www.northseapoets.com/events/the-kirk-sessions-an-evening-of-poetry-and-music

#Scottish #literature #poetry

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1y

Mastodon.scot is a Mastodon server intended for (but not limited to) users in Scotland or who identify as Scottish:

https://mastodon.scot

You can find out more at https://mastodon.scot/about or contact the admin @trumpet

#FeaturedServer #Scotland #Scottish #Scots #Mastodon #Fediverse #FreeFediverse

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1y

The Literary Encyclopedia, an author-owned not-for-profit publication, is seeking new editors for its Scottish literature section. Section editors, who must hold a PhD, commission & edit entries (~2000–2500 words) in their fields of expertise.

@litstudies

https://www.litencyc.com/litencycdescribed.php

#Scottish #literature

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1y

Today, 16 July, is #WorldSnakeDay – so here is “Siesta of a Hungarian Snake”, by Edwin Morgan 🐍

Published in New Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2012)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #concretepoetry #snake #snakes #EdwinMorgan

Edwin Morgan
Siesta of a Hungarian Snake

s sz sz SZ sz SZ sz ZS zs ZS zs zs z

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1y

Literary translation as a linguistic survival strategy | John Corbett

Technology can threaten minority languages such as Scots & Nuosu. Prof Corbett argues that literary translation can, among other things, support minority languages & sustain traditional cultures.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF7nS6_C_KE

#Scottish #literature #translation #Scots #Scotslanguage #minoritylanguages

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1y

The grey roots circle thee, who never knew
At any hour within thy travels lone
A human shape but mine…

—Olive Fraser, “The Adder of Quinag”
First published in The Pure Account (Aberdeen University Press, 1981), & included in The Wrong Music (@canongatebooks 1989)

A poem for #WorldSnakeDay 🐍

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/adder-quinag/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #naturewriting #Scotland #highlands #snake #snakes