Eggplant.place

36d

We needed it—and he stood there,
feet on the dry porch, saying rain,
cloud and skyful, the sound of drumming…

—Niall Campbell, “The Rainmaker”
published in POETRY (July/August 2020)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/153822/the-rainmaker

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #rain

The Rainmaker
by Niall Campbell

We needed it—and he stood there,
feet on the dry porch, saying rain,
cloud and skyful, the sound of drumming;

the bath trough in the garden listened,
white and bone dry, as he described
a bright wash across the dust fields,

the surest downpour, the flushed skin,
my soaked shirt, heavy as a bell.
Then off he went to the scorched fields,

humming, and weighing what we paid.
What did he say: prayer is moisture;
hope is a well—I didn’t care,

I wanted just the words from him—
what I couldn’t dare say—not there
beneath that sun, that blur of fire-sky.

My thoughts all thoughts of water, I
spun my head round—to hear the spill
of the word rain across the boards,

and nothing grew dark, nothing fell—
but something fell, and the ground took,
and something wild as garlic grew.

ALT

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36d

Love rules. Love laughs. Love marches. Love is the wolf that guards the gate.
Love is the food of music, art, poetry. It fills us and fuels us and fires us to create.
Love is terror. Love is sweat. Love is bashed pillow, crumpled sheet, unenviable fate…

—Edwin Morgan, “Love”
A poem for Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
published in A BOOK OF LIVES (Carcanet, 2011)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781857549188/a-book-of-lives/

#Scottish #literature #EdwinMorgan #poem #poetry #love #lovepoem #loveislove #Pride #PrideMonth #PrideMonth2025

Love
by Edwin Morgan

Love rules. Love laughs. Love marches. Love is the wolf that guards the gate.
Love is the food of music, art, poetry. It fills us and fuels us and fires us to create.
Love is terror. Love is sweat. Love is bashed pillow, crumpled sheet, unenviable fate.
Love is the honour that kills and saves and nothing will ever let that high ambiguity abate.
Love is the crushed ice that tingles and shivers and clinks fidgin-fain for the sugar-drenched absinthe to fall on it and alter its state.
With love you send a probe
So far from the globe
No one can name the shoals the voids the belts the zones the drags the flares it signals all to leave all and to navigate.

ALT

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36d

Tenderness is mandatory.
Careless lurches may draw blood,
enthusiasms leave abrasions,
excessive ardour has been known
to snap off spinal plates…

—“The Mating of Dinosaurs”, by William Oliphant (1920–2004)
published in The Mating of Dinosaurs (Taranis Books, 1992)

Today, 1 June, is Dinosaur Day 🦖

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #dinosaurs #DinosaurDay

The Mating of Dinosaurs
William Oliphant

Tenderness is mandatory.
Careless lurches may draw blood,
enthusiasms leave abrasions,
excessive ardour has been known
to snap off spinal plates.

There is the constant burden of
the force of gravity that pulls
against the need for viable eggs.

The wear and tear on genitalia,
like spoil of grind of glacier, is
lost in some future fossil count.

The adaptationists suggest
that gentleness emerges here,
and some will come to call it love.

ALT

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1d

The poems of Arthur Conan Doyle
16 September, online – pay what you can

Although best known for his Sherlock Holmes stories, Arthur Conan Doyle also published several volumes of verse. While his poetry never achieved the same level of acclaim as his fiction, it remains an important part of his literary legacy, & The Live Canon ensemble will perform a selection of his poems

@litstudies

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-poems-of-arthur-conan-doyle-tickets-1284197211429

#Scottish #literature #poetry #19thCentury #ConanDoyle

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49d

Robert Louis Stevenson & Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne married #OTD, 19 May, 1880. In this article, Prof Penny Fielding explores the dangerous collaboration between RLS & his wife: granting female agency on the page & in life

1/3

https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2017/01/06/a-dangerous-collaboration/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #RLS #WomenWriters

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34d

Memory & Moggies: McIlvanney, Muriel & Making a Novel
10 June, free online

Prof Zoë Strachan explores the inspiration behind her latest novel, the historical fiction Catch The Moments as They Fly (2023) – including the work of William McIlvanney, & Muriel Spark’s advice that writers should acquire a cat…

@writingcommunity
@litstudies

https://www.scotland.uni-mainz.de/reading-scotland/

#Scottish #literature #writing #historicalfiction #novel #IAmWriting #WritingCommunity #Scotland #Ayrshire #memory

READING SCOTLAND
with Zoë Strachan

Memory and Moggies:
McIlvanney, Muriel and Making a Novel

Tuesday 10th June 2025
6:00 – 7:30pm (German time) on MS Teams

www.scotland.uni-mainz.de

ALT

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34d

Robert Tannahill (1774–1810), “the weaver poet”, was born #OTD, 3 June – “second only to Robert Burns as a poet writing chiefly in the language of the working class of Scotland”

1/3

https://www.thenational.scot/culture/24360177.celebrating-scotlands-second-greatest-poet-robert-tannahill/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #18thcentury #19thCentury #romanticism #pastoral #workingclass

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35d

it is dawn and my wife is coming to bed
and she has been watching a film about the life of charlie parker

and the air in the bedroom is silent while she undresses
and the light is there at the side of the curtain beyond her head…

—Tom Leonard, “June the Second”, from outside the narrative: poems 1965–2009 (Etruscan Books/Word Power Books 2009)

https://lighthousebookshop.com/book/9780956628336

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #TomLeonard

June the Second
Tom Leonard

it is dawn and my wife is coming to bed
and she has been watching a film about the life of charlie parker

and the air in the bedroom is silent while she undresses
and the light is there at the side of the curtain beyond her head

and she tells me his body gave up of drink and drugs when he was 34
and I decide I am awake and go to the kitchen for a drink of water

and the sky in the north is translucent like a lake
translucent like a lake though it is only 3 am

and when I go back we lightly hold hands as we sometimes do
until the first to be falling asleep begins to twitch and tonight it’s Sonya

and I withdraw my hand and lie back looking at the ceiling
I am aged 51 years and nine months and nine to ten days

ALT

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34d

“Of aal the fish there iss in the sea,” said Para Handy, “nothing bates the herrin’; it’s a providence they’re plentiful and them so cheap!”

Neil Munro (1863–1930) – journalist, novelist, short-story writer, & poet – was born #OTD, 3 June. Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of Herring discusses Munro’s PARA HANDY stories, as well as giving the full text of the tale “The Herring – A Gossip”

1/4

https://www.herripedia.com/para-handy/

#Scottish #literature #humour #shortstory #herring #19thcentury #20thcentury

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35d

Get a head start by having a first name
that doesn’t really go with your second name.
Your parents were just trying to keep everyone happy…

—Palma McKeown, “How To Be Scots-Italian”
published in TALKING ABOUT LOBSTERS: New Writing Scotland 34 (ASL, 2016)
A poem for Festa della Repubblica 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇹

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #ScotsItalian #Italy #FestaDellaRepubblica

Get a head start by having a first name
that doesn’t really go with your second name.
Your parents were just trying to keep everyone happy.
Keep a bottle of Lacryma Christi for when
your Auntie Anna calls in unexpectedly.
Hide the jar of instant coffee in case
she comes into the kitchen & dust off
the old metal coffee pot that unscrews in the middle.
Put out that panettone you got at Christmas
then watch as she scoffs all the Tunnock’s Teacakes.
Learn to sidle down side streets or
melt into shop doorways when you see
old Mr D’Ambrosio coming because, despite
the fact he’s lived here for over sixty years,
you still can’t make out a word he’s saying.
Be prepared to serve sausage rolls & salami di Milano
at Hogmanay parties & give equal play time
to Jimmy Shand & Dean Martin.
You’re just trying to keep everyone happy.
Listen politely to your Auntie Carmen from Coatbridge
when she phones at three in the morning to ask
if everything’s okay because she’s had a dream
about you & the number 62
which signifies death & pestilence.
Try unsuccessfully to get back to sleep.
Feel torn when Italy is playing Scotland at football
until the crowd starts to sing ‘Flower of Scotland’
and a wee tear runs down your cheek.
Try not to get bitter that you never knew
your Italian granddad because during the war
he was taken away by two Scottish policemen
in the middle of the night, herded onto a ship
and was lost at sea when it was torpedoed.
Churchill was just trying to keep everyone happy.

ALT

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35d

Whether the weather be dreich or fair, my luve,
if guid times greet us, or we hae tae face the worst,
ahint and afore whit will happen tae us:
blind in the present, eyes open to the furore…

—Jackie Kay, “A Lang Promise”
published in BANTAM (Picador, 2017)

A poem for Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/jackie-kay/bantam/9781509887927

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #love #lovepoem #Pride #PrideMonth #JackieKay

A Lang Promise
Jackie Kay

Whether the weather be dreich or fair, my luve,
if guid times greet us, or we hae tae face the worst,
ahint and afore whit will happen tae us:
blind in the present, eyes open to the furore,
unkempt or perjink, suddenly puir or poorly,
peely-wally or in fine fettle, beld or frosty,
calm as a ghoul or in a feery-farry,
in dork December or in springy spring weather,
doon by the Barrows, on the Champs-Elysees,
at midnicht, first licht, whether the mune
be roond or crescent, and yer o’ soond mind
or absent, I’ll tak your trusty haun
and lead you over the haw – hame, ma darlin.
I’ll carry ma lantern, and daur defend ye agin ony foe;
and whilst there is breath in me, I’ll blaw it intae ye.
Fir ye are ma true luve, the bonnie face I see;
nichts I fall intae slumber, it’s ye swimming up
in all yer guidness and blitheness, yer passion.
You’ll be mine, noo, an’ till the end o’ time,
ma bonnie lassie, I’ll tak the full guid o’ ye’
and gie it back, and gie it back tae ye:
a furst kiss, a lang promise, time’s gowden ring.

ALT

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47d

In a little rainy mist of white and grey
we sat under an old tree,
drank tea toasts to the powdery mountain…

—Edwin Morgan, “The Picnic”
published in COLLECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 1990)

Today, 21 May, is International Tea Day
https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781847779656/collected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #tea #InternationalTeaDay

The Picnic
by Edwin Morgan

In a little rainy mist of white and grey
we sat under an old tree,
drank tea toasts to the powdery mountain,
undrunk got merry, played catch
with the empty flask, on the pine needles
came down to where it rolled stealthily away –
you lay
with one arm in the rain, laughing
shaking only your wet hair
loose against the grass, in that enchanted place
of tea, with curtains of a summer rain
dropped round us, for a rainy day.

ALT

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34d

Archie Hind (1928–2008), author of THE DEAR GREEN PLACE (1966), was born #OTD, 3 June

“The only other 20th-century novel I know that places a writer’s struggle in an equally well-imagined city is Nabokov’s THE GIFT”
—Alasdair Gray

https://www.scotswhayhae.com/post/with-hind-s-sight-a-review-of-archie-hind-s-the-dear-green-place

#Scottish #literature #20thCentury #novel #Glasgow

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30d

Aonghas Dubh – Ceòl às na Briathran
The poet & writer Aonghas MacNeacail (1942–2022) was born #OTD, 7 June. This programme, originally aired on the BBC, is drawn from “Skerries, Trawlings, Tides” – a literary event celebrating Aonghas’s 80th birthday

1/2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAb0LdDuaSk

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Gaelic #Gaidhlig

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30d

“[Milne’s] cryogenics story, ‘Ten Thousand Years in Ice’, in which a survivor from an ancient advanced civilisation is revived in the present, unintentionally became one of science fiction’s great literary hoaxes”

Robert Duncan Milne (1844–1899) was born #OTD, 7 June, in Cupar, Fife. He emigrated to the USA & became America’s first full-time writer of science fiction

1/5

https://theconversation.com/remembering-the-lost-father-of-american-science-fiction-and-his-scottish-roots-78968

#Scottish #literature #sciencefiction #scifi #Victorian #19thcentury

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46d

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was born #OTD, 22 May, at 11 Picardy Place, Edinburgh – a 🎂 🧵

On BBC Sounds: Bridget Kendall explores Conan Doyle’s life & work – the doctor & literary superstar who changed Crime fiction forever

1/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p054419v

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #Crimewriting #CrimeFiction #Sherlock #SherlockHolmes #SherlockHolmesDay #ArthurConanDoyle

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33d

Twa Cats anes on a Cheese did light,
To which baith had an equal Right,
But Disputes, sic as aft arise,
Fell out at sharing of the Prize…

“The twa Cats & the Cheese”, by Allan Ramsay (1686–1758)
😾😾🧀🐵

Today, 4 June, is National Cheese Day!

https://digital.nls.uk/special-collections-of-printed-music/archive/105690319

#Scottish #literature #Scots #Scotslanguage #poem #poetry #18thCentury #cats #cheese #NationalCheeseDay

The Twa Cats and the Cheese
Fable IX
by Allan Ramsay

Twa Cats anes on a Cheese did light,
To which baith had an equal Right,
But Disputes, sic as aft arise,
Fell out at sharing of the Prize;
Fair Play said ane, Ye bite o’er thick
Thae Teeth of yours gang wonder quick:
Let’s part it, else lang or the Moon
Be chang’d, the Kebuck will be done.

ALT

But wha’s to do’t,—They’re Parties baith,
And ane may do the other Skaith,
Sae with Consent away they trudge,
And laid the Cheese before a Judge,
A Monkey with a campsho Face,
Clerk to a Justice of the Peace,
A Judge he seem’d in Justice skill’d,
When he his Master’s Chair fill’d;
Now Umpire chosen for Division,
Baith sware to stand by his Decision.
Demure he looks.—The Cheese he pales,—
He prives it good,—Ca’s for the Scales,
His Knife whops throw’t,—In twa it fell,
He puts ilk Haff in either Shell;
Said he, We’ll truly weigh the Case,
And strickest Justice shall have Place,
Then lifting up the Scales, he fand
The tane bang up, the ither stand;
Syne out he took the heaviest Haff,
And ate a Knoost o’t quickly aff,
And try’d it syne,—It now prov’d light,
Friend Cats, said he, We’ll do ye right.
Then to the ither Haff he fell,
And laid till’t teughly Tooth and Nail,
Till weigh’d again it lightest prov’d:
The Judge wha this sweet Process lov’d,
Still weigh’d the Case, and still ate on,
Till Clients baith were weary grown,

ALT

And tenting how the Matter went,
Cry’d, Come, come Sir, We’re baith content.
Ye Fools, quoth he, and Justice too
Maun be content as well as you.
Thus grumbled they, thus he went on,
Till baith the Haves were near hand done;
Poor Pousies now the Daffine saw
Of gawn for Nignyes to the Law:
And bill’d the Judge that he wad please
To give them the remaining Cheese:
To which his Worship grave reply’d,
The Dues of Court maun first be paid.
Now Justice pleas’d,—What’s to the Fore
Will but right scrimply clear your Score;
That’s our Decreet,—Gae Hame and Sleep,
And thank us ye’re win aff sae cheap.

ALT

Edited 33d ago

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32d

Jacobite manuscripts held in archives in Edinburgh & Glasgow
19 June, Mitchell Library, Glasgow – free

These manuscripts offer insights into the motivations & experiences of those who lived through the uprisings in often surprising ways, including the methods by which this information was recorded

Ralph McLean is Manuscripts Curator for Long 18th Century Collections at the National Library of Scotland

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/jacobite-manuscripts-held-in-archives-in-edinburgh-and-glasgow-tickets-1380390427929

#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #Jacobite #manuscripts

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45d

Hamish Henderson, Burns & Music
21 June, Dundee Central Library – free

Prof Fred Freeman of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland talks about two great songsters & poets, Hamish Henderson & Robert Burns – both of whom redefined Scottish culture & provided a national & international vision of the country

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hamish-henderson-burns-and-music-tickets-1374121928679

#Scottish #literature #poetry #song #HamishHenderson #RobertBurns #Scots #Scotslanguage #culture #identity #Dundee

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44d

I love all films that start with rain:
rain, braiding a windowpane
or darkening a hung-out dress
or streaming down her upturned face…

—Don Paterson, “Rain”
Published in RAIN (Faber, 2010)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/rain-2/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #rain #film #cinema

Don Paterson
Rain

I love all films that start with rain:
rain, braiding a windowpane
or darkening a hung-out dress
or streaming down her upturned face;

one big thundering downpour
right through the empty script and score
before the act, before the blame,
before the lens pulls through the frame

to where the woman sits alone
beside a silent telephone
or the dress lies ruined on the grass
or the girl walks off the overpass,

and all things flow out from that source
along their fatal watercourse.
However bad or overlong
such a film can do no wrong,

so when his native twang shows through
or when the boom dips into view
or when her speech starts to betray
its adaptation from a play,

I think to when we opened cold
on a starlit gutter, running gold
with the neon of a drugstore sign
and I’d read into its blazing line:

forget the ink, the milk, the blood –
all was washed clean with the flood
we rose up from the falling waters
the fallen rain’s own sons and daughters

and none of this, none of this matters.

ALT

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28d

“Scottish Gaelic… is poised for a technological transformation thanks to the ÈIST project, led by the University of Edinburgh. ÈIST [eːʃtʲ] (‘ayshch’) is short for Ecosystem for Interactive Speech Technologies, & means ‘listen’ in Gaelic”
—Prof Will Lamb, University of Edinburgh, via @BellaCaledonia

https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2025/06/06/gaelic-in-the-digital-age-inside-the-eist-project/

#Scottish #Gaidhlig #Gaelic

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32d

Gaelic & Scots: Cultural Connections & Inspirations in the 20th Century

Talks form the FRLSU’s May 6 webinar are now online, looking at

▶️ George Campbell Hay | Deòrsa Mac Iain Dheòrsa
▶️ William Neill | Uilleam Nèill
▶️ Douglas Young
▶️ translations between Gaelic & Scots
▶️ Derick Thomson | Ruaraidh MacThòmais & GAIRM

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvLWE-AoQoGZ7NF6Vt2oYlKn74u0_TKsW

#Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #Scots #Scotslanguage #translation #minoritylanguages #20thcentury

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32d

In favoured summers
These islands have the sun all to themselves
And light a toy to play with, weeks on end…

—Edwin Muir, “The Northern Islands”
published in The Complete Poems of Edwin Muir, ed. Peter H. Butter (ASLS, 1999)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Orkney #summer #EdwinMuir

Edwin Muir
The Northern Islands

In favoured summers
These islands have the sun all to themselves
And light a toy to play with, weeks on end.
The empty sky and waters are a shell
Endlessly turning, turning the wheel of light,
While the tranced waves run wavering up the sand.
The beasts sleep when they can, midnight or midday,
Slumbering on into unending brightness.
The green, green fields give too much, are too rank,
With beautiful beasts for breeding or for slaughter.
The horses, glorious useless race, are leaving.
Have the old ways left with them, and the faith,
Lost in this dream too comfortable and goodly
To make room for a blessing? Where can it fall?
The old ways change in the turning, turning light,
Taking and giving life to life from life.

ALT

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32d

THE Q&A: AMBROSE PARRY

Married pair Marisa Haetzman & Christopher Brookmyre write historical crime fiction as “Ambrose Parry”. In The List’s Q&A they muse on the benefits of apple corers, being a gay panda, & putting your hands in the air like you just don’t care

https://list.co.uk/news/the-qa-ambrose-parry-46686

#Scottish #literature #crimefiction #historicalfiction

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32d

Translating Alasdair Gray

Recorded at the Alasdair Gray Archive on 23 May: a conversation between Professor Enrico Terrinoni (translator of Gray’s work in Italian) & Dr Rodge Glass (Gray’s biographer).

https://youtu.be/fXaiJeJE33k?si=0UG58FFH5DiiMgAP

#Scottish #literature #AlasdairGray #translation #literarytranslation #Italian

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