Eggplant.place

358d

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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358d

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

A sixteenth-century handwritten book, lying open on a dark grey-blue cushion. Cloth-covered weighted cords hold the book open to display the text, including a section underlined in red and a paragraph starting with a large, red capital M.

ALT

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357d

What are you going to do
With what is left of yourself
Now among the rustling
Of your maybe best years?

—WS Graham, “An Entertainment for WS Graham for Him Having Reached Sixty-Five”

The Modernist romantic poet W.S. Graham (1918–1986) was born #OTD, 19 November

A 🎂 🧵

1/7

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/145184/an-entertainment-for-ws-graham-for-him-having-reached-sixty-five

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #modernism #romanticism #WSGraham

An Entertainment for W.S. Graham for Him Having Reached Sixty-Five
by W. S. Graham

What are you going to do
With what is left of yourself
Now among the rustling
Of your maybe best years?
This is not an auto-elegy
With me pouring my heart
Out into where you
Differently stand or sit
On the Epidaurus steps.
What shall I say to myself
Having put myself down
On to a public page?

Where am I going now?
And where are you going
Tricked into reading
Words of my later life?
Let me pretend you are
Roughly of my age.
Are you a boy or a girl?
And what has happened to you?

Look at the chirping various
Leaves of Mr Graham’s
Spanking summer. Where are
You at? I know my face
Has changed. My hair has blanched
Into a wrong disguise
Sitting on top of my head.

Beside each other perched
On the Epidaurus steps.
Where am I going to go?
Shall I rise to follow
The thin sound of the goats
Tinkling their bells?

ALT

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357d

Centre for Robert Burns Studies Conference
17 January, University of Glasgow – £25 (includes tea, coffee, lunch, & a toast)

A day conference exploring the life, work, & legacy of Robert Burns.This year, the conference theme is the Burns Supper: a global phenomenon that celebrates its 225th anniversary in 2026.

@litstudies

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/centre-for-robert-burns-studies-conference-tickets-1851549627779

#Scottish #literature #RobertBurns #18thcentury #poetry #song #romanticism #BurnsSupper

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251d

Creative Conversations: Rachelle Atalla
9 March, University of Glasgow – free

The perfect escape. The perfect nightmare.

Rachelle Atalla discusses her unsettling, creepy, & claustrophobic novel, THE SALT FLATS

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-conversations-rachelle-atalla-tickets-1984284674878

#Scottish #literature #novel #thriller

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185d

A liuthad soitheach a dh’fhàg ar dùthaich
le sgiathan geala a’ toirt Chanada orra.
Tha iad mar neapaigearan ’nar cuimhne
’s an sàl mar dheoirean,
’s anns na croinn aca seòladairean a’ seinn
mar eòin air gheugan.

—Iain Mac a’ Ghobhainn, “Na h-Eilthirich” (Iain Crichton Smith, “The Exiles”)
published in Nua-Bhardachd Gaidhlig / Modern Scottish Gaelic Poems, @canongatebooks 1999

https://canongate.co.uk/books/193-modern-scottish-gaelic-poems-a-bilingual-anthology/

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #Clearances #emigration #exile

Na h-Eilthirich
Iain Mac a’ Ghobhainn

A liuthad soitheach a dh’fhàg ar dùthaich
le sgiathan geala a’ toirt Chanada orra.
Tha iad mar neapaigearan ’nar cuimhne
’s an sàl mar dheoirean,
’s anns na croinn aca seòladairean a’ seinn
mar eòin air gheugan.
Muir a’ Mhàigh ud, gu gorm a’ ruith,
gealach air an oidhche, grian air an latha,
ach a’ ghealach mar mheas buidhe,
mar thruinnsear air balla,
ris an tog iad an làmhan,
no mar mhagnet airgeadach
le gathan goirte
a’ sruthadh do’n chridhe.

ALT

The Exiles
Iain Crichton Smith

The many ships that left our country
with white wings for Canada.
They are like handkerchiefs in our memories
and the brine like tears
and in their masts sailors singing
like birds on branches.
That sea of May, running in such blue,
a moon at night, a sun at daytime,
and the moon like a yellow fruit,
like a plate on a wall,
to which they raise their hands,
like a silver magnet
with piercing rays
streaming into the heart.

ALT

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358d

Is ailbhean.co-shaoghal.net fear de dh’iomadh frithealaiche Mastodon neo-eisimeileach as urrainn dhut cleachdadh airson pàirt a ghabhail sa cho-shaoghal. Tha am frithealaiche seo ann do luchd na Gàidhlig.

https://ailbhean.co-shaoghal.net

Mu dhèidhinn: https://ailbhean.co-shaoghal.net/about
Rianachd le: @gunchleoc

#FeaturedServer #Gàidhlig #ScottishGaelic #ScotsGaelic #Gaelic #Alba #Scotland #Scottish #Mastodon #Fediverse #FreeFediverse

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355d

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,‍‍
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,‍‍
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍An’ fellow-mortal!

—Robert Burns, “To a Mouse, On turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785”

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #RobertBurns #Scots #Scotlsanguage #environmentalism #naturewriting #18thCentury #Romanticism #November #winter

To a Mouse, On turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785.
Robert Burns

Wee, sleekit, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,‍‍
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee‍‍
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,‍‍
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,‍‍
An’ fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave‍‍
’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,‍‍
An’ never miss’t!

ALT

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,‍‍
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,‍‍
Baith snell an’ keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,‍‍
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past‍‍
Out thro’ thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,‍‍
But house or hald,
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,‍‍
An’ cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men‍‍
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,‍‍
For promis’d joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,‍‍
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,‍‍
I guess an’ fear!

ALT

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357d

Whole Duty of Children
by Robert Louis Stevenson

A child should always say what’s true
And speak when he is spoken to,
And behave mannerly at table:
At least as far as he is able.

—from A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES (1885)

Today, 20 November, is World Children’s Day.

https://www.unicef.org/take-action/campaigns/world-childrens-day

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #19thcentury #children #childrensliterature #kidlit #RobertLouisStevenson #WorldChildrensDay

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357d

“At this novel’s heart – as with all Kelman’s work – is an unfettered inner voice, a living consciousness in motion… Kelman gifts us the consciousness of childhood as an eternal experience”

—Alan Warner on James Kelman’s 2008 novel KIERON SMITH, BOY

@bookstodon

https://www.productmagazine.co.uk/books/world-book-trip/

#Scottish #literature #novel #children #childhood #WorldChildrensDay

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356d

Trouble is not my middle name.
It is not what I am.
I was not born for this…

—Liz Lochhead, “Listen”
A poem written for the Children’s Panel, to encourage new voluntary members, 2012. Published in FUGITIVE COLOURS (Polygon, 2016)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/fugitive-colours/

#Scottish #literature #childhood #children #poem #poetry #WorldChildrensDay

Listen
by Liz Lochhead

Written for the Children’s Panel, to encourage new voluntary members, 2012.

Trouble is not my middle name.
It is not what I am.
I was not born for this.
Trouble is not a place
though I am in it deeper than the deepest wood
and I’d get out of it (who wouldn’t?) if I could.

Hope is what I do not have in hell –
not without good help, now. Could you
listen, listen hard and well
to what I cannot say except by what I do?

And when you say I do it for badness
this much is true:
I do it for badness done to me before
any badness that I do to you.

Hard to unfankle this.
But you can help me.
Maybe.
Loosen
all these knots and really listen.
I cannot plainly tell you this, but, if you care,
then – beyond all harm and hurt –
real hope is there.

ALT

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356d

See ma mammy
See ma dinner ticket
A pititnma
Pokit an she pititny
Washnmachine…

—Margaret Hamilton, “Lament for a Lost Dinner Ticket”
published in NEW POEMS 1972–73: a PEN anthology of contemporary poetry, ed. Douglas Dunn (Hutchinson, 1973)

https://www.scotslanguage.com/articles/node/id/21

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #childhood #children #Scots #Scotslanguage ##WorldChildrensDay

Lament for a Lost Dinner Ticket
Margaret Hamilton

See ma mammy
See ma dinner ticket
A pititnma
Pokit an she pititny
Washnmachine.

See thon burnty
Up wherra firewiz
Ma mammy says Am no tellynagain
No’y playnit.
A jist wen’y eatma
Pokacrisps furma dinner
Nabigwoffldoon.

The wummin sed Aver near
Clapsd
Jistur heednur
Wee wellies sticknoot.

They sed Wot heppind?
Nme’nma belly
Na bedna hospital.
A sed A pititnma
Pokit an she pititny
Washnmachine.

They sed Ees thees chaild eb slootly
Non verbal?
A sed MA BUMSAIR
Nwen’y sleep.

ALT

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356d

The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out
Through the blinds and the windows and bars;
And high overhead and all moving about,
There were thousands of millions of stars…

—Robert Louis Stevenson, “Escape at Bedtime”
from A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES (1885)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Childrensliterature #kidlit #childhood #children #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #WorldChildrensDay

Escape at Bedtime
by Robert Louis Stevenson

The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out
Through the blinds and the windows and bars;
And high overhead and all moving about,
There were thousands of millions of stars.
There ne’er were such thousands of leaves on a tree,
Nor of people in church or the Park,
As the crowds of the stars that looked down upon me,
And that glittered and winked in the dark.

The Dog, and the Plough, and the Hunter, and all,
And the star of the sailor, and Mars,
These shone in the sky, and the pail by the wall
Would be half full of water and stars.
They saw me at last, and they chased me with cries,
And they soon had me packed into bed;
But the glory kept shining and bright in my eyes,
And the stars going round in my head.

ALT

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130d

For the UHI’s Creative Insights podcast, Peter Noble talks to Philip Paris – best known for his historical fiction & non-fiction. Philip shares an insight into his creative writing process & gives tips & guidance for those considering getting into creative writing

@writingcommunity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_U9rsPi1jA

#Scottish #literature #writing #writingcommunity #creativewriting

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310d

Playwright & artist John Byrne (1940–2023) was born #OTD, 6 Jan. An extraordinary talent, best known for the SLAB BOYS trilogy & TUTTI FRUTTI & YOUR CHEATIN’ HEART, he also designed album covers for Gerry Rafferty & the set for THE CHEVIOT, THE STAG & THE BLACK BLACK OIL

A 🎂🧵

1/8

#Scottish #literature #art #playwright #screenwriter #albumart #artist #painter #JohnByrne

“The Riddie”, by John Byrne, 2018, ink & watercolour on board.

A stylised head-and-shoudlers self-portrait of the artist. A long forelock of grey hair dangles down from his forehead as he looks askance out of the painting. His eyes are large and expressive, his nose triangular and enormous. His mouth is hidden behind a bristling white moustache and beard, and an unlit cigarette pokes out from between them.

ALT

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252d

These are the hills, these are the woods,
These are my starry solitudes;
And there the river by whose brink
The roaring lions come to drink…

—Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Land of Story-Books”
from A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES
📚🛋️🦁

A poem for World Book Day (UK & Ireland)
🖼️ by Roger Duvoisin, 1944

@bookstodon

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #books #RobertLouisStevenson #19thcentury #Victorian #imagination #WorldBookDay #kidlit #childrensliterature

The Land of Story-Books
by Robert Louis Stevenson

At evening, when the lamp is lit,
Around the fire my parents sit;
They sit at home and talk and sing,
And do not play at anything.

Now, with my little gun, I crawl
All in the dark along the wall,
And follow round the forest track
Away behind the sofa back.

There, in the night, where none can spy,
All in my hunter’s camp I lie,
And play at books that I have read
Till it is time to go to bed.

These are the hills, these are the woods,
These are my starry solitudes;
And there the river by whose brink
The roaring lions come to drink.

I see the others far away
As if in firelit camp they lay,
And I, like to an Indian scout,
Around their party prowled about.

So, when my nurse comes in for me,
Home I return across the sea,
And go to bed with backward looks
At my dear land of Story-books.

ALT

A black-and-white illustration for Robert Louis Stevenson's poem “The Land of Story-Books”. A large, black, ornate, Victorian armchair sits in a shadowy corner. A small boy peeks out behind it, pointing a toy rifle. Behind him are images from his imagination: a smouldering campfire; the faces of two (quite friendly-looking) lions; a native American, wearing a feathered war-bonnet and wielding a tomahawk, can be seen behind the chair; and a sly-looking wolf prowls on the left edge of the frame.

ALT

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355d

Cauld, cauld as the wall
That rins frae under the snaw
On Ben a’Bhuird…

—Nan Shepherd, “Cauld, cauld as the wall”
published 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 #winter

Nan Shepherd
Cauld, cauld as the wall

Cauld, cauld as the wall
That rins frae under the snaw
On Ben a’Bhuird,
And fierce, and bricht,
This water’s nae for ilka mou,
But him that’s had a waucht or noo
Nae wersh auld waters o the plain
Can sloke again,
But aye he clim’s the weary hicht
To fin’ the wall that lowps like licht,
Caulder than mou can thole, and aye
The warld cries out on him for fey.

ALT

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243d

“Read it now” – Ursula K. Le Guin

Weaving folklore, fairy tale & Norse myth into a shimmering, witty & slyly subversive tapestry, Naomi Mitchison’s TRAVEL LIGHT – a rediscovered gem of classic fantasy writing – has just been republished in the UK by Virago

@bookstodon

https://store.virago.co.uk/products/travel-light

#Scottish #literature #fantasy #kidlit #20thcentury #womenswriting #ursulaLeGuin #NaomiMitchison #folklore #mythology

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355d

Reigniting Spark: Jewish Values in the Modernism of Muriel Spark
26 Nov, University of Edinburgh & online – free

Prof Holli Levitsky investigates how Muriel Spark navigates her Jewish identity amidst the broader themes of modernity, nationalism, & personal identity

@litstudies

https://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/event/professor-holli-levitsky-reigniting-spark-jewish-values-modernism-muriel-spark

#Scottish #literature #murielspark #20thcentury #womenwriters #Jewish #Catholic #modernism #identity

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332d

Finally, I’m done with the phone calls and everything else
and when I switch on the radio it feels like lying in salt water –
all I need to do is breathe: Bach will keep me afloat…

—Elizabeth Burns (1957–2015) was born #OTD, 14 December

1/3

https://www.wayleavepress.co.uk/?page_id=898

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #womenwriters #music #classicalmusic #Bach

Listening to Bach’s B Minor Mass in the kitchen
by Elizabeth Burns

Finally, I’m done with the phone calls and everything else
and when I switch on the radio it feels like lying in salt water –
all I need to do is breathe: Bach will keep me afloat.
I’m mixing yeast into flour, making rolls for my daughter’s
birthday breakfast in the morning, kneading and kneading
the dough then setting it to rise; arranging in a glass
the last of the tiny pink roses with a sprig of green,
finding the blue candles and ironing the tablecloth,
the one my granny embroidered, sweeping the floor,
thinking about the hot August night of the birth,
and about the people we met on Westray last week,
and the presents I still need to wrap, and Bach himself
who is like a mountain covered in wildflowers,
and the singers in the Albert Hall who, the conductor says,
get close to godliness through this performance;
and I’m wondering, as all those voices fill my kitchen
with the Mass, if this is what he means: the sense
of time and place dissolving, so what divides us
from the past and elsewhere, and from each other,
falls away, and everything’s connected and we are all
drops of water in this enormous breaking wave.

ALT

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353d

The City is of Night; perchance of Death…

James “B.V.” Thomson (1834–1882) – poet, journalist, translator, anarchist, atheist – was born #OTD, 23 Nov, in Port Glasgow. Best known for his long poem THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT, he influenced TS Eliot & is seen as a progenitor of Modernism

1/4

https://psychogeographicreview.com/the-city-of-dreadful-night/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Victorian #19thcentury #modernism #TSEliot

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353d

Wha’s Doctor Wha? Wha better kens nor he
that jouks the yetts and rides the birlin wheels
o time and space, shape-shiftin as he reels
through endless versions o reality? …

—James Robertson, “Doctor Wha”
First published in Where Rockets Burn Through (ed. Russell Jones, 2012)

Today, 23 November, is Doctor Who Day!

1/2

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #sciencefiction #SFpoetry #DoctorWho #DoctorWhoDay

Doctor Wha
by James Robertson

Wha’s Doctor Wha? Wha better kens nor he
that jouks the yetts and rides the birlin wheels
o time and space, shape-shiftin as he reels
through endless versions o reality?
Bit dis he ken himsel? Weel, mibbe sae,
yet wha’s tae ken gin aw that’s kent by Wha
maks mair or less or better sense ava
nor whit we ithers ken, or think we dae?
The universe is fou o parallels:
wha’s like us? Hunners? Thoosans? We oorsels
micht be mere glisks o life-forms yet tae be.
Whit’s real? Whaur’s here? When’s noo? Wha’s quick or deid?
Wha’s jist a thochtie in anither’s heid?
Wha’s Doctor Wha? Wha better kens nor he?

ALT

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351d

“Laidlaw is the melancholy heir to Marlowe. Reads like a breathless scalpel cut through the bloody heart of a city’ – Denise Mina

William McIlvanney discusses and reads from his LAIDLAW trilogy at Dundee Literary Festival 2013, in conversation with Russel D. McLean

@bookstodon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K879j3KVFvo

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #CrimeFiction #WilliamMcIlvanney

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350d

Unveiling Lady Scott
Walter Scott, French Influence & Transcultural Connections
Free online from 26 Nov–10 Dec 2025

Céline Sabiron sheds new light on Walter Scott’s work by investigating the French influence of his wife, Charlotte Charpentier & argues that she, as a knowledgeable art & literature enthusiast, greatly assisted him in his work as his secretary, amanuensis, & proofreader

@litstudies

https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/unveiling-lady-scott/312FE027B29B98DEA13AEFD0A39EA095

#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #romanticism #WalterScott

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351d

Burns and Nature
21 January, Glasgow – free

An exploration of Robert Burns’s relationship to nature, told through poetry, spoken word & film.

This event, presented in partnership with the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow, will examine Burns’s relationship to place, his life as a farmer, & his perspective on humanity’s relationship to the natural world.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/burns-and-nature-tickets-1975112411391

#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #RobertBurns #poetry #environmentalism #nature

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