scottish

Environmental Scotland IV: Garry MacKenzie & Coinneach Maclean

A recording of the latest Environmental Scotland seminar on “Ben Dorain: A Conversation with a Mountain” (Garry MacKenzie) and “The Tourist Gaze on Gaelic Scotland” (Coinneach Maclean).
Facilitated by Monika Szuba (University of Gdańsk) and Petra Johana Poncarová (University of Glasgow / Charles University, Prague)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5xXbocNE60

#Scottish #literature #environment #environmentalism #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poetry

The latest Scots Whay Hae! podcast talks to Donald S. Murray about his new novel The Loch of the Bees. Donald discusses his inspirations & the importance of place, as well as Highland history, Gaelic culture & language (& the attempts to suppress both), & the author’s personal connections to this novel.

https://www.scotswhayhae.com/post/the-sting-is-in-the-tale-the-scots-whay-hae-podcast-talks-to-donald-s-murray

#Scottish #literature #novel #podcast #Gaidhlig #Gaelic

Gintinn is giùlan / Bearing and Begetting

A story in Gaelic & English written by Mairi Kidd & illustrated by Tom Morgan-Jones. Inspired by a poem in the National Library of Scotland’s collections attributed to Iseabail Ní Mheic Cailéin & preserved in the sixteenth‑century Book of the Dean of Lismore.

https://www.nls.uk/collections/stories/literature-and-poetry/bearing-and-begetting/

#Scottish #literature #shortstory #shortfiction #Gaidhlig #Gaelic

An Evening with Graeme Armstrong
5 June, Waterstones Sauchiehall St, Glasgow – £5

Graeme Armstrong delivers a cult classic in the making in RAVEHEART, a whip-smart satirical look at where Britain might be going.

Graeme will talk about the joy of rave, the power of rebellion, & the importance of writing about young people.

https://www.waterstones.com/events/an-evening-with-graeme-armstrong/glasgow-sauchiehall-street

#Scottish #literature #novel

Call for papers
Politics, Place & Print Culture: The 14th International Walter Scott Conference
28–30 June 2027, University of Edinburgh

The conference invites papers on any & all aspects of Walter Scott’s relationship to questions of politics, place & print culture

Deadline for proposals: 1 Oct 2026

@litstudies

https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6395

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #SirWalterScott #WalterScott #callforpapers #printculture

Andrew Lang (1844–1912) was born #OTD, 31 March. An extraordinarily prolific anthropologist, writer & literary critic, he is best remembered today for collecting & editing fairy stories from around the world

A 🎂 🧵

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https://universityofglasgowlibrary.wordpress.com/2016/05/20/the-man-of-letters-in-fairyland-andrew-lang/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #kidlit #childrensliterature #fairytale #AndrewLang

Boswell Book Festival 2026
8–10 May, Dumfries House

Tickets are on sale for the 2026 Boswell Book Festival, the world’s only festival of biography & memoir. The festival is a programme of stories taken from the lives of people past & present.

https://www.boswellbookfestival.co.uk

#Scottish #literature #bookfestival #biography #memoir

Larks they were in lift-off, swallows in soaring.
Soaring metal is flight and nest together…

—Edwin Morgan, “A Home in Space”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Artemis #space #NASA

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Ayont the linn; ayont the linn,
Whaur gowdan wags the gorse,
A gowk gaed cryin’: “Come ye in:
I’ve fairins in my purse…”

—William Soutar, “The Gowk”
published in Collected Published Poetry (Tippermuir, 2024)

April Fool’s Day is Huntigowk Day in Scotland

https://tippermuirbooks.co.uk/product/william-soutar-collected-works-vols-1-2/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #April1st

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It is big sky and its changes,
the sea all round and the waters within.
It is the way sea and sky
work off each other constantly,
like people meeting in Alfred Street,
each face coming away with a hint
of the other’s face pressed in it…

—Andrew Greig, “Orkney/This Life”
published in INTO YOU (Bloodaxe, 2001)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/orkney-life/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Orkney

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CFP
A Kingdom in Perplexity: Voices of Seventeenth-Century Scotland Symposium
11 June, University of Glasgow

Postgraduate & Early Career Researchers specialising in any aspect of early modern Scottish history, literature & culture are invited to participate in the University of Glasgow’s new interdisciplinary research symposium. Contact scot17thcenturyresearch@gmail.com for details.

#Scottish #literature #history #culture #celticstudies #callforpapers #Gaelic #Gaidhlig

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The cold Roman eye, hand on seal.
Vale. Take the thief away.

“You carry your own tree, Jimmy…”
Another gallowsbird behind.
One ahead, burdened, a bruised brightness…

—George Mackay Brown, “Stations of the Cross: The Good Thief”
published in CARVE THE RUNES: Selected Poems (Birlinn, 2021)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/carve-the-runes/

#Scottish #literature #Easter #GoodFriday #poem #poetry #Orkney

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Three o’clock. The bus lurches
round into the sun. “D’s this go –”
he flops beside me – “right along Bath Street?
– Oh tha’s, tha’s all right, see I’ve
got to get some Easter eggs for the kiddies…

—Edwin Morgan, “Good Friday”
from CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020

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

#Scottish #literature #Easter #poem #poetry #GoodFriday #Glasgow

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Three o’clock. Yer hot cross buns ur in the oven
fur another nine minutes. The soup will be tested at some point
the mora, or maybe oan Sunday…

—Charles Lang, “Good Friday (After Edwin Morgan)”
from NOBODY REMEMBERS THE BIRDMAN: New Writing Scotland 40 (ASL, 2022)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws40/

#Scottish #literature #Easter #poem #poetry #GoodFriday

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heh jimmy
yawright ih
stull wayiz urryi
ih

heh jimmy
ma right insane yirra pape
ma right insane yirwanny us jimmy
see it nyir eyes
wanny uz

—Tom Leonard, “The Good Thief”
published in THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF SCOTTISH VERSE, @canongatebooks 2021

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

#Scottish #literature #Easter #poem #poetry #GoodFriday #Glasgow

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Her face was thrawed.
She wisna aa come.

In the trams o her airms
the wummin held oot her first bairn.
It micht hae been a mercat day
and him for sale…

—Alastair Mackie, “Pietà”
from 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

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Nae man wha loves the lawland tongue
But warsles wi’ the thocht—
There are mair sangs that bide unsung
Nor a’ that hae been wrocht…

—“The Makar”, by William Soutar (1898–1943) – born #OTD, 28 April

A 🎂 🧵

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

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

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A girnin, greitin deil wis I –
I wis auld, and feelin aulder.
Syne the heatin system burst in Hell:
It wis cauld – and gettin caulder…

—James Robertson, “Beelzebub Resurfaces”

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/beelzebub-resurfaces/

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

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Push the boat out, compañeros,
push the boat out, whatever the sea…

—Edwin Morgan, “At Eighty”: a poem written for his own 80th birthday

Edwin Morgan (1920–2010) was born #OTD, 27 April – a 🎂 🧵

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https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/eighty-0/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #EdwinMorgan #birthday #80thbirthday

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Done is a battell on the dragon blak,
Our campioun Chryst confoundit hes his force;
The ȝettis of hell ar brokin with a crak,
The signe triumphall rasit is of the croce…

—William Dunbar, c.1460–1520. The poem was most likely written when Dunbar was at James IV’s court

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#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #medieval #medievalliterature #Easter #Scots #Scotslanguage

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“This poem was written when my father was very ill, dying of cancer, & I was coming home from the hospital. Suddenly this line ‘I am the resurrection & the life’ came into my head & then the poem began to emerge from the line.”

—Edwin Morgan on “Message Clear”

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#Scottish #literature #Easter #poem #poetry #concretepoetry

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“A rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings.”

Shipyard union leader James Reid was elected Rector of the University of Glasgow in 1971. He gave his rectorial address #OTD, 28 April, 1972. The New York Times reprinted it, & called it the greatest political speech since the Gettysburg Address. Read it online at

https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_167194_smxx.pdf

#Scottish #literature #politics #alienation #politicalspeech #Glasgow #GlasgowUniversity #TradesUnions #workingclass #WorkingClassHistory

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There’s a boulder by the forest path,
left by the ice ten thousand years ago,
it waits, patterned with lichen…

—Antonia Kearton, “A Benediction”
published in Break in Case of Silence: New Writing Scotland 39 (ASL, 2021)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws39/

#Scottish #literature #Easter #poem #poetry

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Here in Condorrat the nursery is shut
so adults with rosettes pinned to their hearts
can persuade us where to pin our hopes…

—Ross Wilson, “The Cost of Living”
published in VITAL SIGNS (Red Squirrel Press, 2023)

https://www.redsquirrelpress.com/product-page/vital-signs-ross-wilson

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #politics #elections

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I am waiting
for the foot to slide,
for the heart to seize,
for the leaping sinews to go slack,
for the fight to the death to be fought to the death…

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

As well as being Edwin Morgan’s birthday, today is also Hyena Day. Happy International Hyena Day to those who celebrate

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #hyena #InternationalHyenaDay

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