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
Happy #InternationalHyenaDay !
#EdwinMorgan (1920–2010) was born #OTD, 27 April – a 🎂 🧵
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…
—Edwin Morgan, “At Eighty” – written for his own 80th birthday
#Scottish #literature #poetry
1/11
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/eighty-0/
“This is a book that is full of reported truth. I didn’t want to ever be in a position where I was kind of guessing.”
Glasgow Review of Books interviews Andrew O’Hagan about his latest novel CALEDONIAN ROAD
Poet, the flowers are open
even when we are dead
even when the power has gone
from our right arms…
—Iain Crichton Smith, “At the Funeral of Robert Garioch”
in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS, Carcanet 2021, ed. John Greening
Robert Garioch (1909–1981), one of the greatest figures in #20thcentury #Scottish #poetry, died #OTD, 26 April
‘A Different World’: Dorothy K. Haynes’s Domestic Horror
Timothy C. Baker, GOTHIC STUDIES 24/1, 2022
“Although Haynes published widely in the middle decades of the twentieth century, and her work was republished in two ‘best of’ collections in 1981 and 1996, her stories remain underexamined. At her best, Haynes might be thought of as Scotland’s answer to Shirley Jackson…”
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #supernatural #gothic #horror #WomenWriters
https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/gothic.2022.0122
HASTE YE BACK
by Dorothy K. Haynes
edited by Craig Lamont
A gifted writer of #gothic & #supernatural fiction, Dorothy K. Haynes (1918–1987) grew up in Aberlour Orphanage. In this memoir, she brings to life the residents & stories of the institution that shaped her
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #memoir #orphanage
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/haste-ye-back/
“What matters now is the momentum in studying Haynes and her unique voice in Scottish literature, and making the best use of it going forward.”
With the republication of Dorothy K. Haynes’ memoir HASTE YE BACK, Craig Lamont explains why we should be reading Haynes now, & why she fell out of the canon.
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #supernatural #horror #fiction #memoir #20thcentury #WomenWriters
https://booksfromscotland.com/2024/04/haste-ye-back-by-dorthy-k-haynes-edited-by-craig-lamont/
This month, a new adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s SUNSET SONG takes to the stage. Set in NE #Scotland on the brink of WWI, director Finn den Hertog’s production excavates the novel’s grittier themes. “We wanted to get back to the brutality of the book. It’s a book about a life. It’s a book about the land. It’s a book about trauma. It’s a book full of rich, thrilling characters & opposites & dichotomies.”
Gave yet another lecture. God, I’m boring.
Said all the same old things I’ve said before
With touches of ‘however-ing’ and ‘therefore-ing’.
Dear God, it’s true, I’m just an ancient bore…
—Douglas Dunn, “Thursday”
in THE NOISE OF A FLY, Faber 2017
The reason, gin ye waant the truth,
I sleep like this – ma gairdie stieve
upon yer breist, its steekit nieve
laid on yer sma’ hert like an aith –
is no’ for waarmth or peace o’ mind
but that in ma dreams, ma dou,
I’m staunin here upricht, wi’ you
the lang sheld that I grue ahind.
—Don Paterson, “The Human Sheld”
published in RAIN (Faber 2010)
