Tickets are on sale now for the Glasgow launch of Quite Ugly One Evening on May 6th, which will be at the magnificent Drygate brewery, and chaired by none other than @callummcsorley.bsky.social.
www.drygate.com/events/whats...
This is too much for my brain this late on a Friday afternoon. Or is it too laaaat? Leet?
Nuair a bha Gàidhlig aig na h-Eoin – When the Birds Spoke Gaelic
28 March, Isle of Lewis. £12
Join Màiri MacMillan, Alana MacInnes, Gillebrìde MacMillan, Padruig Moireasdan & Coll MacDonald for an evening of songs, stories, folklore & music inspired by birdlife
www.tickettailor.com/events/mairi...
We have been blown away by the support and kindness we have received since announcing our closure. Thank you all 🖤
Help an indie press out and treat yourself to 50% off ALL paperbacks, ebooks and audiobooks purchased from our website. Use code HAUNT50 at the checkout!
www.hauntpublishing.com/books
The Comin’ o’ the Spring Lady John Scott There’s no a muir in my ain land but’s fu’ o’ sang the day, Wi’ the whaup, and the gowden plover, and the lintie upon the brae. The birk in the glen is springin’, the rowan-tree in the shaw, And every burn is rinnin’ wild wi’ the meltin’ o’ the snaw. The wee white cluds in the blue lift are hurryin’ light and free, Their shadows fleein’ on the hills, where I, too, fain wad be; The wind frae the west is blawin’, and wi’ it seems to bear The scent o’ the thyme and gowan thro’ a’ the caller air. The herd doon the hillside’s linkin’. O licht his heart may be Whose step is on the heather, his glance ower muir and lea! On the Moss are the wild ducks gatherin’, whar the pules like diamonds lie, And far up soar the wild geese, wi’ weird, unyirdly cry. In mony a neuk the primrose lies hid frae stranger een, An’ the broom on the knowes is wavin’ wi’ its cludin o’ gowd and green; Ower the first green sprigs o’ heather, the muir-fowl faulds his wing, And there’s nought but joy in my ain land at the comin’ o’ the Spring!
There’s no a muir in my ain land but’s fu’ o’ sang the day,
Wi’ the whaup, and the gowden plover, and the lintie upon the brae.
The birk in the glen is springin’, the rowan-tree in the shaw,
And every burn is rinnin’ wild wi’ the meltin’ o’ the snaw…
—Lady John Scott, “The Comin’ o’ the Spring”
Thank you!
Norman MacCaig on Philip Larkin “I used to judge his poetry very unfairly...I admired his wit, his brevity... But I couldn’t like it, because I’m a happier man than he was…” [adopts lugubrious deep voice] “ 'Life is a walk down Cemetery Road' - stuff and - think of all the pubs you pass on the way!”
It looks like there’s a second-hand copy of THE WRONG MUSIC (Canongate, 1989, ISBN 9780862412173) on sale at a not-insane price from a bookseller in California on abebooks.com
A poem, made to resemble a poster showing stations on the Glasgow subway system. It is headed "Inner Circle", and displays a vertical arrow pointing downwards with a list of stations on it. The first is labelled THIS STATION; the others are given as Sohira Amona Subwey Goina Rangwey Cozza Ootirsirkelzaff
Sohira
Amona
Subwey
Goina
Rangwey
Cozza
Ootirsirkelzaff
—John Duncan, “Inner Circle”
published in FROM GLASGOW TO SATURN #33
#poem #poetry
glasgowtosaturn.com
For Pilgrims and Passengers
The Flowers of Time
The bags you carry
The Flags of Romance
the everyday signs
Each other
Each other
—Anonymous poem on the wall of Kelvinhall subway station, Glasgow
#poem #poetry
aaronykchan.wordpress.com/2017/03/18/g...
The Clockwork Orange Project is an experimental literary project taking place on the Glasgow Subway, sponsored by the @rsliterature.bsky.social, & is open to anyone living in or around (or with some meaningful connection to) Glasgow
kelvingrovewriters.wordpress.com/2026/03/02/t...
Scandinavia 1880s
In the grave a warrior
with generous grave goods,
shields, an axe, a spear, a sword…
—Vivien Jones, “BJ 581 in Birka, or, Androcentrism in Archaeology”
published in The Poets’ Republic 9, 2021
#poem #poetry #archaeology
www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/bj-581-...
I never saw the intricate connections
with quite this sunny clarity before,
such intimate revealing of relations
in brilliance, and at such an hour…
—Alan Riach, “Kilmartin Glen”
published in CLEARANCES (Hazard Press/SCP, 2001)
#poem #poetry #archaeology
You can download all 20 of Robert Louis Stevenson’s FABLES for free from our website – including the one where Long John Silver & Captain Smollett sneak out between chapters of TREASURE ISLAND for a fly smoke & a blether…
💙📚 #C19 #shortfiction #flashfiction
asls.org.uk/publications...
XI—THE READER “I never read such an impious book,” said the reader, throwing it on the floor. “You need not hurt me,” said the book; “you will only get less for me second hand, and I did not write myself.” “That is true,” said the reader. “My quarrel is with your author.” “Ah, well,” said the book, “you need not buy his rant.” “That is true,” said the reader. “But I thought him such a cheerful writer.” “I find him so,” said the book. “You must be differently made from me,” said the reader. “Let me tell you a fable,” said the book. “There were two men wrecked upon a desert island; one of them made believe he was at home, the other admitted—” “O, I know your kind of fable,” said the reader. “They both died.” “And so they did,” said the book. “no doubt of that. And everybody else.” “That is true,” said the reader. “Push it a little further for this once. And when they were all dead?” “They were in God’s hands, the same as before,” said the book. “Not much to boast of, by your account,” cried the reader. “Who is impious now?” said the book. And the reader put him on the fire. The coward crouches from the rod, And loathes the iron face of God.
“I never read such an impious book,” said the reader, throwing it on the floor.
“You need not hurt me,” said the book; “you will only get less for me second hand, & I did not write myself.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Reader”
For #WorldBookDay, a story about a book
#C19 💙📚
Creative Conversations: Rachelle Atalla
9 March @glasgow.ac.uk – free
The perfect escape. The perfect nightmare.
Rachelle Atalla discusses her unsettling, creepy, & claustrophobic novel, THE SALT FLATS
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-c...
Kathleen Jamie Lochan (For Jean Johnstone) When all this is over I mean to travel north, by the high drove roads and cart tracks probably in June, with the gentle dog-roses flourishing beside me. I mean to find among the thousands scattered in that land a certain quiet lochan, where water lilies rise like small fat moons, and tied among the reeds, underneath a rowan, a white boat waits.
When all this is over I mean
to travel north, by the high
drove roads and cart tracks
probably in June,
with the gentle dog-roses
flourishing beside me…
—Kathleen Jamie, “Lochan”
published in SELECTED POEMS (Picador, 2018)
#BookologyThursday #poem #poetry 💙📚
www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kath...
Now's your time!! I'm so glad I threw my bag of ideas into the ring - it's been the best experience and the team are fabulous to work with!
“Ramsay ‘transformed the genre of the pastoral drama by bending it in a more “realistic” direction’. This is where Ramsay enters a rather heated and complicated British context”
—Dr Craig Lamont unpacks Allan Ramsay’s THE GENTLE SHEPHERD
#C18th
www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2023/11/clas...
What 1725 Scottish play was called ‘the noblest pastoral’ by Robert Burns, inspired more than 40 paintings, & was performed throughout Scotland as late as the end of the #C19th? Steven Newman considers Allan Ramsay’s most famous work
#BookologyThursday #C18th
euppublishingblog.com/2022/07/01/w...
Happy World Book Day!
The exciting news is during her Centenary Year, Agnes Owens books are being republished.
birlinn.co.uk/2026/01/08/p...
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.
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.
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”
in A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES
A #poem for #WorldBookDay (UK & Ireland)
🖼️: Roger Duvoisin, 1944
💙📚 #kidlit
NT Connections Festival returns to Pitlochry 🎭
Four youth theatre companies. Four bold new plays. The next generation of theatre from groups from Pitlochry, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Stirling.
📅 10 & 11 April
🎟️ https://pitlochryft.com/4cvns4g
I mentioned this yesterday but I genuinely think it might be worse than The Tay Bridge Disaster originalpoems.com/poem?id=32222
Robert Burns’s Diamond Cutter, as held by the Rozelle House Galleries in South Ayrshire. A tool, made up of a cylindrical, hollow wooden handle with a metal protrusion at one end and a wooden one at the other. There is a diamond inserted into the tip of the metal piece.
The thing itself (probably)
www.futuremuseum.co.uk/collections/...
Here’s Ghetto Priest performing “I Murder Hate” on the 2017 album Every Man For Every Man
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsjX...
More on Helen Adam in this birthday thread from December:
bsky.app/profile/asls...
The Worm Queen Turns: Helen Adam (1909–1993)
From Dundee Manse to California Coven
10 March @glasgow.ac.uk – free
From Celtic Twilight to the Beat Generation, Helen Adam’s career explodes literary historical periodisation & tangles its sequential logic
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/corey-gibs...
