scottish

155d

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

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138d

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

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138d

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

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164d

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

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164d

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 🎂 🧵

1/6

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

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

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162d

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

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137d

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

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162d

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

A Home in Space
Edwin Morgan

Laid-back in orbit, they found their minds.
They found their minds were very clean and clear.
Clear crystals in swarms outside were their fireflies and larks.
Larks they were in lift-off, swallows in soaring.
Soaring metal is flight and nest together.
Together they must hatch.
Hatches let the welders out.
Out went the whitesuit riggers with frames as light as air.
Air was millions under lock and key.
Key-ins had computers wild on Saturday nights.
Nights, days, months, years they lived in space.
Space shone black in their eyes.
Eyes, hands, food-tubes, screens, lenses, keys were one.
One night – or day – or month – or year – they all –
all gathered at the panel and agreed –
agreed to cut communication with –
with the earth base – and it must be said they were –
were cool and clear as they dismantled the station and –
and gave their capsule such power that –
that they launched themselves outwards –
outwards in an impeccable trajectory, that band –
that band of tranquil defiers, not to plant any –
any home with roots but to keep a –
a voyaging generation voyaging, and as far –
as far as there would ever be a home in space –
space that needs time and time that needs life.

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162d

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

The Gowk
William Soutar

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

My bield is o’ the diamond stane
Wi’ emerant atween:
My bonnie een are yours alane,
An’ rubies are my een.”

My faither brak a sauchy stick;
My mither wal’d a stane:
An’ weel l set it for the trick
Tae mak the gowk my ain.

The stane was set; the shot was shot;
The flichterin’ burd was fund:
But nocht aboot that lanely spot
O’ gowd or diamond.

It had nae siller for a croun;
Nae rubies for its een:
But a the crammasy ran doun
Whaur aince its breist had been.

I look’t; an’ there was nane tae see
The fairin I had taen:
I hung it on a roden-tree
An’ left it a’ alane.

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165d

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

Orkney / This Life
Andrew Greig

For Catherine and Jamie

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.
It is the way a week-long gale
ends and folk emerge to hear
a single bird cry way high up.

It is the way you lean to me
and the way I lean to you, as if
we are each other’s prevailing;
how we connect along our shores,
the way we are tidal islands
joined for hours then inaccessible,
I’ll go for that, and smile when I
pick sand off myself in the shower.
The way I am an inland loch to you
when a clatter of white whoops and rises . . .

It is the way Scotland looks to the South,
the way we enter friends’ houses
to leave what we came with, or flick
the kettle’s switch and wait.
This is where I want to live,
close to where the heart gives out,
ruined, perfected, an empty arch against the sky
where birds fly through instead of prayers
while in Hoy Sound the ferry’s engines thrum
this life this life this life.

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163d

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

A map of Scotland from a 17th-century pocket atlas of Great Britain, drawn by John Speed and engraved by Peter Van Den Keere (Petrus Kaerius): 1627. Drawn in black on paper browned with age, labelled THE KINGDOME OF SCOTLAND

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161d

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

Stations of the Cross: The Good Thief
George Mackay Brown

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.

I’ve carried millstones, wine-vats, a mast.
That one was a carpenter.
His knees buckle under the heavy baulk.

My mother, poor woman, is dead.
His mother is here. Poor woman. Poor woman.

Look, Simon’s come into town
With an ox to sell.
They’ve laid another yoke on Simon.

Veronica, seamstress. No napkin ever
Soaked up such blood and sweat.

I stagger but I don’t fall.
The sneak-thief plods like a mule.
The bright one, he’s down again.

Those women! Miriam, Judith, Esther
Go home, sing over your cradles.
Sing among looms and pots.

Below, cornfields and vineyards.
A third time, fallen.
He tastes golden dust.

The soldiers won’t bother, I think,
Haggling over my coat.
No scarecrow would wear a rag like that.

Silence – curses – from cross and cross.
From the mid-ark
A dove wings out into the blackest storm.

Thrust of lance into heart-root.
The soldiers are coming with mallets
To break the legs of the thieves.

The eyes of the mother
Drown all the world in pity and love.
The hammer beats on my knee.

That the hands of such a woman
Fold me gravewards.
Bear me and all men in her folds of light.

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160d

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

Good Friday
Edwin Morgan

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.
I’ve had a wee drink, ye understand –
ye’ll maybe think it’s a – funny day
to be celebrating – well, no, but ye see
I wasny working, and I like to celebrate
when I’m no working – I don’t say it’s right
I’m no saying it’s right, ye understand – ye understand?
But anyway tha’s the way I look at it –
I’m no boring you, eh? – ye see today,
take today, I don’t know what today’s in aid of,
whether Christ was – crucified or was he –
rose fae the dead like, see what I mean?
You’re an educatit man, you can tell me –
– Aye, well. There ye are. It’s been seen
time and again, the working man
has nae education, he jist canny – jist
hasny got it, know what I mean,
he’s jist bliddy ignorant – Christ aye,
bliddy ignorant. Well –” The bus brakes violently,
he lunges for the stair, swings down – off,
into the sun for his Easter eggs,
on very‍‍
‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ nearly‍‍
‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ steady‍‍
‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ legs.

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160d

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

Charles Lang
Good Friday

After Edwin Morgan

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. The world is oor oyster!
There’ll be nae eggs this year fur a few reasons.

I press play oan the telly: a recordin ae Tuesday night’s Eastenders
preceded by the last minute n a hof ae Tuesday night’s news.
That feels like such a long time ago. The days aw feel the same
but everythin is movin quickly. I fast forward through the theme tune.

lan is feelin guilty fur the part he played in Dennis’s death.
Blackmail is a wonderful thing. Dotty is usin it tae take control ae the Arches.
Will Sharon ever find oot? Will Mick sell the Queen Vic?
Did Carole Baskin kill her disappeared husband n feed him tae her lucrative tigers?

These ur things ye need tae think aboot. The questions
that need tae be answered. Is it possible tae eat mer than three
cream crackers withoot a drink a watter? How many days
will it take me tae complete this 1000-piece New Yorker jigsaw?

TBC. Maybe I’ll dae it the mora, maybe I’ll dae it next week.
Tell ye wit I’ll get most ae it oot the wiy the mora, efter ma soup,
takin a break at aboot three o’clock fur a wee coffee.
The hot cross buns, by the way: outstandin.

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160d

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

Tom Leonard
The Good Thief

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

heh

heh jimmy
lookslik wirgonny miss thi gemm
gonny miss thi GEMM jimmy
nearly three a cloke thinoo

dork init
good jobe theyve gote the lights

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160d

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

Pietà
Alastair Mackie

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.
Naebody stoppit tae niffer.

His life bluid cled his breast
wi a new reid semmit.
He’d hippens for deid claes.

Aifter the boombers cleck
and the sodgers traik thro the skau
there’s an auld air sterts up –
bubblin and greetin.

It’s a ballant mithers sing
on their hunkers i the stour
for a bairn deid.

They ken it by hert.

It’s the cauldest grue i the universe
yon skelloch.
It niver waukens the deid.

Edited 160d ago

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136d

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 🎂 🧵

1/7

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

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

William Soutar
The Makar

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.

Ablow the wastrey o’ the years,
The thorter o’ himsel’,
Deep buried in his bluid he hears
A music that is leal.

And wi’ this lealness gangs his ain;
And there’s nae ither gait
Though a’ his feres were fremmit men
Wha cry: Owre late, owre late.

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159d

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

Beelzebub Resurfaces
James Robertson

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.

When the fires were doun tae reek and ash,
And the cauldrons fou o ice,
And imps and bogles hunkered roond
Like cowrin, chitterin mice,

And the wretched deid were truly deid,
And had nae pain left tae thole –
I kent that it wis time tae leave
Yon dreich and dowie hole.

I trauchled up the auld stane stair,
Unsnecked the rousty yett,
And hard upon the stoury grund
Ma clootie fit I set.

The Earth wis yince a paradise –
It wis bonnie, bricht and braw,
And a sulky soor-mooth like masel
It didna please at aw.

But noo I fund a different scene,
That gart ma spirits lowp,
For man had made his paradise
A stinkin, scabbit cowp.

The land wis deid, the oceans deid,
The fush and wild beasts gane,
The rainforests were hackit doun,
And the rain wis acid rain;

Deserts had smoored the green fields ower,
The ice-caps were snaw-bree,
Floods had drouned the straths and glens,
And wild winds whipped the sea.

Fires bleezed that made aw Hell’s fires seem
Mere skinkles in the nicht;
And, in their bonnie, beekin lowe,
O whit a glorious sicht!

God’s craitur fechtin wi himsel
For ile and land and food,
For widd and water, graith and gear,
And – best o aw – for God;

Men busy killin ither men
Wi guns and bombs and tanks,
And slauchterin bairns and weemin tae –
And the deid piled up in ranks.

I minded whit I’d read langsyne
And clapped ma hauns wi glee,
For whit I saw looked awfie like
A Judgment Day tae me.

Sae aw ye princes, presidents
And ither heids o state,
Herrie and fyle, oppress, invade,
And dinna be ower blate.

And aw ye haly terrorists,
Be bauld and fou o faith,
And whaur ye ding doun tyranny
Raise misery and daith.

I am a stranger faur frae hame,
But I fairly like yer style,
Sae dinna mind me sittin here –
I dout I’ll bide a while.

A girnin, greitin deil wis I –
A sair-faced auld doom-monger.
But noo I’m happy, and whit’s mair –
I believe I’m gettin younger!

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137d

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 🎂 🧵

1/14

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

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

At Eighty
by Edwin Morgan

Push the boat out, compañeros,
push the boat out, whatever the sea.
Who says we cannot guide ourselves
through the boiling reefs, black as they are,
the enemy of us all makes sure of it!
Mariners, keep good watch always
for that last passage of blue water
we have heard of and long to reach
(no matter if we cannot, no matter!)
in our eighty-year-old timbers
leaky and patched as they are but sweet
well seasoned with the scent of woods
long perished, serviceable still
in unarrested pungency
of salt and blistering sunlight. Out,
push it all out into the unknown!
Unknown is best, it beckons best,
like distant ships in mist, or bells
clanging ruthless from stormy buoys.

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159d

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

1/2

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

Done is a battell on the dragon blak
William Dunbar (c. 1460–1520)

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;
The diuillis trymmillis with hiddous voce,
The saulis ar borrowit and to the blis can go,
Chryst with his blud our ransonis dois indoce:
Surrexit dominus de sepulchro.

Dungin is the deidly dragon Lucifer,
The crewall serpent with the mortall stang;
The auld kene tegir, with his teith on char
Quhilk in a wait hes lyne for us so lang,
Thinking to grip us in his clowis strang;
The mercifull lord wald nocht that it wer so.
He maid him for to felȝe of that fang:
Surrexit dominus de sepulchro.

He for our saik that sufferit to be slane
And lyk a lamb in sacrifice wes dicht,
Is lyk a lyone rissin vp agane
And as a gyane raxit him on hicht;
Sprungin is Aurora radius and bricht,
On loft is gone the glorius Appollo,
The blisfull day departit fro the nycht:
Surrexit dominus de sepulchro.

The grit victour agane is rissin on hicht,
That for our querrell to the deth wes woundit:
The sone that wox all paill now schynis bricht,
And, dirknes clerit, our fayth is now refoundit;
The knell of mercy fra the hevin is soundit,
The Cristin ar deliverit of thair wo,
The Iowis and thair errour ar confoundit:
Surrexit dominus de sepulchro.

The fo is chasit, the battell is done ceis,
The presone brokin, the jevellouris fleit and flemit;
The weir is gon, confermit is the peis,
The fetteris lowsit and the dungeoun temit;
The ransoun maid, the presoneris redemit,
The feild is win, ourcumin is the fo,
Dispulit of the tresur that he ȝemit:
Surrexit dominus de sepulchro.

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158d

“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”

1/3

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

“Message Clear”, by Edwin Morgan. A concrete poem where the lines are created by taking the phrase “i am the resurrection and the life” and, by selectively deleting letters from each line, building up the following text:

am i
if
i am he
hero
hurt
there and
here and
here and
there
i am rife
in sion and
i die
a mere sect
a mere section
of
the life
of
men
sure
the die
is set and
i am the surd
at rest
o life
i am here
i act
i run
i meet
i tie
i stand
i am thoth
i am ra
i am the sun
i am the son
i am the erect one if
i am rent
i am safe
i am sent
i heed
i test
i read
a thread
a stone
a tread
a throne
i resurrect
a life
i am in life
i am resurrection
i am the resurrection and
i am
i am the resurrection and the life

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136d

“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

The cover of ALIENATION, James Reid's Rectorial Address at the University of Glasgow in 1972. The cover shows two black-and-white photos quartered together by a saltire cross. The left and right sections show a view of a quadrangle at the University; the top and bottom quadrants show a view of cranes and a line of shipyard workers respectively.

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158d

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

Antonia Kearton
A Benediction

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

the quietest blue, yellow soft as cream,
knee-high, flat-topped, so wide
I cannot wrap my arms around it –

small hands of moss patter up its side.
It’s nothing like my grandmother’s table
at Easter, but that’s what comes to mind,

dark brown and shining under the white cloth,
bearing the feast, eggs dyed with onion skins
and at the centre, sweet pashka

a resurrection of butter, eggs, and cream,
radiant with bright sugared fruits –
moss green, rowan red, the sun’s strong yellow.

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135d

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

Ross Wilson
THE COST OF LIVING

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

How to explain voting to you, aged four?
‘What party would you vote for?’
‘A birthday party; with balloons.’
‘I think the balloon already has a party.’

Still, it’s our duty to vote. I spell
D.U.T.Y and she becomes a character
in a story we take turns to tell.

Later, you yell FASTER on a swing
as ‘Heat or eat’ headlines bemoan
the cost of living on a mobile phone
I bury in a pocket so I can push you on.

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136d

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

1/4

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

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

Hyena
Edwin Morgan

I am waiting for you.
I have been travelling all morning through the bush
and not eaten.
I am lying at the edge of the bush
on a dusty path that leads from the burnt-out kraal.
I am panting, it is midday, I found no water-hole.
I am very fierce without food and although my eyes
are screwed to slits against the sun
you must believe I am prepared to spring.

What do you think of me?
I have a rough coat like Africa.
I am crafty with dark spots
like the bush-tufted plains of Africa.
I sprawl as a shaggy bundle of gathered energy
like Africa sprawling in its waters.
I trot, I lope, I slaver, I am a ranger.
I hunch my shoulders. I eat the dead.

Do you like my song?
When the moon pours hard and cold on the veldt
I sing, and I am the slave of darkness.
Over the stone walls and the mud walls and the ruined places
and the owls, the moonlight falls.
I sniff a broken drum. I bristle. My pelt is silver.
I howl my song to the moon – up it goes.
Would you meet me there in the waste places?

It is said I am a good match
for a dead lion. I put my muzzle
at his golden flanks, and tear. He
is my golden supper, but my tastes are easy.
I have a crowd of fangs, and I use them.
Oh and my tongue – do you like me
when it comes lolling out over my jaw
very long, and I am laughing?
I am not laughing.
But I am not snarling either, only
panting in the sun, showing you
what I grip
carrion with.

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,
for a glazing eye and the rumour of blood.
I am crouching in my dry shadows
till you are ready for me.
My place is to pick you clean
and leave your bones to the wind.

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