Eggplant.place

173d

When I am reading
the literature of my people
I think,
We have no Homer

no poet as great as that,
at all as great as that,
in that way
in that marvellous way…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “When I am Reading”
published in NEW COLLECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2011)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781857549607/new-collected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

Iain Crichton Smith
When I am Reading

When I am reading
the literature of my people
I think,
We have no Homer

no poet as great as that,
at all as great as that,
in that way
in that marvellous way.

But now and again I read
about a particular girl
who died of love
in a ragged dress

or an eagle will rise
crying, I was eating
noble dead soldiers
who were lying on a battlefield.

And now and again there will sail
on the sea towards Canada
ships with salt sails,
songs that are white with pain.

ALT

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173d

The thing about poetry is you have to keep doing it.
People have to keep making it.
The old stuff is no use
Once it’s old…

—Margaret, Tait, “Now”
from Poems, Stories and Writings (Carcanet, 2023)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800173798/poems-stories-and-writings/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

Now
by Margaret Tait

I used to lie in wait to see the clover open
Or close,
But never saw it.
I was too impatient,
Or the movement is too subtle,
Imperceptible
And more than momentary.
My five-year-old self would tire of waiting
And when I looked again
– All closed for the night!
I missed it
Once more.

Cinematographically
I have registered the opening of escholtzia
On an early summer morning.
It gave me a sharp awareness of time passing,
Of exact qualities and values in the light,
But I didn’t see the movement
As movement.
I didn’t with my own direct perception see the petals
moving.
Later, on the film, they seemed to open swiftly,
But, at the time,
Although I stared
And felt time not so much moving as being moved in
And felt
A unity of time and place with other times and places
Yet
I didn’t see the petals moving.

ALT

I didn’t see them opening.
They were closed,
And later they were open,
And in between I noted many phases,
But I didn’t see them moving open.
My timing and my rhythm could not observe the
rhythm of their opening.

The thing about poetry is you have to keep doing it.
People have to keep making it.
The old stuff is no use
Once it’s old.
It comes out of the instant
And lasts for an instant.
Take it now
Quickly
Without water.

There!

Tomorrow they’ll be something else.

ALT

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173d

heh Casey did a tell ye a goat
a couple a poems published
widizthatmean
widayyemean
dizthatmeanyegetmoneyfurrit…

—William Letford, “It’s aboot the labour”
published in BEVEL (Carcanet, 2012)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781847771926

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

It’s aboot the labour
by William Letford

hammers nails
hammers nails
hammers nails

heh Casey did a tell ye a goat
a couple a poems published
widizthatmean
widayyemean
dizthatmeanyegetmoneyfurrit

eh naw
aw right

hammers nails
hammers nails
hammers nails

ALT

Edited 173d ago

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173d

I found him wandering on the hill
one hot blue afternoon.
He looked as skinny as a nail,
as pale-skinned as the moon…

—Don Paterson, “The Poetry”
published in RAIN (Faber, 2009)

https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571255580-rain/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

Don Paterson
The Poetry

after Li Po

I found him wandering on the hill
one hot blue afternoon.
He looked as skinny as a nail,
as pale-skinned as the moon;

below the broad shade of his hat
his face was cut with rain.
Dear God, poor Du Fu, I thought:
It’s the poetry again.

ALT

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173d

you don’t get prose in anapaestic dimeters
nobody publishes their first slim volume of prose
aristotle never wrote The Proses

—Tom Leonard, “100 Differences Between Poetry & Prose”

Today, 21 March, is World Poetry Day!

https://www.tomleonard.co.uk/online-poetry-and-prose/100-differences-between-poetry-and-prose.html

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

100 Differences Between Poetry and Prose
Tom Leonard

poetry stops before the end of the margin
you can talk about prose without mentioning school
you don’t read poetry to get from Glasgow to Saltcoats without noticing

John Menzies doesn’t stock poetry
whoever heard of war & peace having the line as a unit of semantic yield
you can call a poem what you want and say its poetic licence

poetry is the subliminal history of linguistic shape
ahem
poetry has four wheels, two wings and a pair of false teeth

poetry is the heart and the brain divided by the lungs
poetry is the world’s oldest cock and fanny story

you don’t get prose in anapaestic dimeters
nobody publishes their first slim volume of prose
aristotle never wrote The Proses

if you dribble past five defenders, it isn’t called sheer prose
poets are the unacknowledged thingwaybobs

poetry is quintessentially contrapuntal
the square root of poetry is an ever-evolving quark
whenever Vergil looked in the mirror, he beheld an epic Latin poet

poetry is all the juicy bits in the juiciest order
poetry is jellied religion
pascal: if your labourers complain too much, try taking them to a poetry reading

prose goes scchhpludd
prose goes scchhpludd scchhpludd clomp clomp clomp
are you sitting comfortably

then I’ll end

ALT

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173d

It’s for weddings
and funerals
and reading on the train
and for taking a person out of herself
and bringing her back more sane…

—Helena Nelson, “Poetry Forum”
published in DOWN WITH POETRY! (Happenstance, 2016)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/poetry-forum/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

Poetry Forum
by Helena Nelson

What is poetry for? (Maitreyabhandu)

It’s for weddings
and funerals
and reading on the train
and for taking a person out of herself
and bringing her back more sane.

It’s for children
and lunatics
and chimney-sweeps and punks
It’s for teachers
and preachers
and politicians and drunks.

It’s for dinner
and afternoon tea
and marvellous midnight snacks.
It’s for cravings
and ravings
and low-poetry attacks.

It’s for four o’clock
for four of us
and for five o’clock
for five.
It’s for fortitude
and forums
for formalists to survive.

It’s for all we know intelligent
and rarely less than clever.
You can get some
for nothing
and remember it
forever.

ALT

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173d

Tha i mar bharaille de sgadan saillte:
chan eil agad ach do chròg
a stobadh ann, agus dòrlach a thoirt a-mach,
reamhar is tiugh leis a’ bhuntàta…

—Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul, “Bàrdachd”
published in AIBISIDH, Polygon Books 2011

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/bardachd/

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

Bàrdachd
Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul

Tha i mar bharaille de sgadan saillte:
chan eil agad ach do chròg
a stobadh ann, agus dòrlach a thoirt a-mach,
reamhar is tiugh leis a’ bhuntàta.

Stob
an t-ìm na mheasg
agus tha cuirm agad: Eliot is Donnachadh Bàn,
le do làmhan rùisgte. Seachain
forca is sgian: fàg sin aig na sgoilearan.

Nuair a thig thu gu bonn a’ bharaille
sgròb na craicinn ri chèile,
dean ràth chnàimhean,
lìon lannan
’s tilg sin thairis
dìreach mu àm reothairt.

Ma ghlacas tu adag,
thoir leat i: nuair tha an sgadan
gann, nì easgann fraighte fhèin a’ chùis
san acras.

ALT

Poetry
Angus Peter Campbell

It’s like a barrel of salt herring:
you only have to stick your paw
in, and lift a handful out,
thick and juicy with the tatties.

Pile
the butter in the middle
and you have a feast: Eliot and Duncan Bàn,
eaten with your bare fingers. Don’t use
a knife and fork: leave that to the scholars.

When you reach the bottom of the barrel
scrape the skins together,
make a raft of bones,
a net of fine filament,
and fling it over the side
just after the spring tide.

If you catch a common haddock,
take it anyway: in the absence
of a fat herring even eels
taste fine when deep-fried.

ALT

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173d

a cop in a panda
wound down his window & asked us
what we had in our bags
to which we shouted POETRY!
in unison,
lifted
thick majestic photocopies
and POEMS OF THIRTY YEARS
by Edwin Morgan into the air
as he looked on in horror
and told us to be on our way
and not to do it again…

—Graham Fulton, “Poetry Reaper”

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/poetry-reaper/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay