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Celebrate Agnes Owens this spring (Apr–Jun 2026) in Milngavie & Alexandria. Join the Polygon launch + live event (9 May, 4–6:30pm, Milngavie Town Hall) with readings, Q&A & signing. Tickets via Eventbrite.👇🏽
Back to basics. A day in the company of my muse’s poetry.
A Work for Poets George Mackay Brown To have carved on the days of our vanity A sun A ship A star A cornstalk Also a few marks From an ancient forgotten time A child may read That not far from the stone A well Might open for wayfarers Here is a work for poets – Carve the runes Then be content with silence
To have carved on the days of our vanity
A sun
A ship
A star
A cornstalk
Also a few marks
From an ancient forgotten time
A child may read…
—“A Work for Poets”: the final #poem of George Mackay Brown (1921–1996) who died #OTD, 13 April
in CARVE THE RUNES (Polygon 2021)
birlinn.co.uk/product/carv...
“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” - Robert Swan
We all have the power to help create a nature-rich future. Nature is for everyone, and #nature needs all of us. 🌳
Discover more about #rewilding 👉https://treesforlife.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/
So I passed him some very good advice, that if you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat. Alone with the cat in the room where you work, I explained, the cat will invariably get up on your desk and settle placidly under the desk-lamp. The light from a lamp, I explained, gives a cat great satisfaction. The cat will settle down and be serene, with a serenity that passes all understanding. And the tranquillity of the cat will gradually come to affect you, sitting there at your desk, so that all the excitable qualities that impede your concentration compose themselves and give your mind back the self-command it has lost. You need not watch the cat all the time. Its presence alone is enough. The effect of a cat on your concentration is remarkable, very mysterious.
“[I]f you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat.”
—Nancy Hawkins, the majestic narrator of Muriel Spark’s A FAR CRY FROM KENSINGTON, on why a writer should own a cat
#BookwormSat 🐈⬛
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I'm spending my weekend editing 'The Puddock Wioot A Pond' after being poorly all week.
Ah want Scots weans tae know thit the way they speak isnae wrang.
If you're able, please consider buying one of my books. Shares are much appreciated too.
luath.co.uk/pages/emma-g...
I’m with Stevenson. As the keeper of six cats (plus interlopers), writing is a distant dream.
Islands are far from remote. It is all about perspective.
Take Finlaggan, in Islay, for example: a centre of power and cultural significance from prehistoric times to the medieval period. It was right in the heart of a maritime world connecting Scandinavia with what would become Scotland.
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Agnes Owens at 100
‘Out of the Margins’ celebrates her life & work with exhibitions, events & talks across Milngavie & Alexandria this spring. Join us to rediscover a vital Scottish voice. More details soon! Curated by @sorchadallas.bsky.social @agrayarchive.bsky.social
Their rose tea 🌹- a sad day.
Photograph of sun rising over a hill. The sea is dark in the foreground.
Wind-rattled night in our tin box on wheels, but it is the Hebrides and with a sunrise like this…
Black and white photograph of a ruined house and byre.
Chasing family ghosts in Islay.
I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake By A Horse Hello. I am a horse. I work very hard at my job of being a horse. When humans say move the heavy thing, I move the heavy thing. When humans sit on top of me and pull on my head, I carry them where they want to go. The main food the humans give me is hay and oats. But I am thinking it would be nice to have a different food. I am thinking I would like to try cake. Yes, yes. Cake. I know all about it. When humans eat cake, it is in glad times. It is the food for a celebration, such as when a woman becomes 47. I have seen cake on the Fourth of July. When humans have a cake, they stand around it and clap hands and smile and say happy birthday at each other. Sometimes there are beautiful markings on a cake, such as balloons or a pink shape. Sometimes the top of a cake is on fire and a boy must blow on the fire with mouth wind. This is the scariest cake. I do not want this kind. But I will eat any other cake. Any cake that is not the fire cake that tries to kill the boy. Please understand: I do not get money for doing work. I do not get to go inside the house. All I am either doing my horse job or standing in my pen or eating food off the floor. I always do these things. But I have never once gotten cake and I would like it very much. I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children. I am more helpful to the farm. Children do not move the heavy things like me or let anyone ride on them. And yet they get cake. Maybe the humans will realize this. Maybe they will say, "You know who deserves cake? That horse. That horse whose back we are always on." Every day I dream about what it will be like if I get to eat cake. Here is what will happen. First, I will walk to the cake and putt my nose at it like hrrfff to make and stomping my hooves to make sure it is not a snake. Then I will trot in a circle to show that I am a horse and I am large. After that, I will nuzzle the cake to …
The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me.
It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."
Life, letters & low tide in Shetland
“Valda is clearly the more practical of the two. It would become apparent that without her at the helm, they were doomed.”
Dr Colin McIlroy @natlibscot.bsky.social examines the letters of Hugh MacDiarmid & Valda Trevlyn Grieve
www.nls.uk/collections/...
I’ve been at this for a while. The photo is from 2017 - the last time I stood in an election - Mid Argyll ward. I’ve stood for Westminster (Argyll & Bute), Holyrood (Highlands & Islands and Mid Scotland & Fife) and Europe (in the good old days). Electioneering days gone, voting habits remain.
For whoever needs to hear this I'm the only Jewish person to lead a political party - third largest in the country.
The Daily Mail have been & always will be my enemy - they historically supported fascists & continue to do so.
I'll take no lectures from them on Antisemitism.
Election season.
In the archives today:
Helen B Cruickshank and Hamish Henderson exchanging letters in 1952 - he expresses gratitude and she mock-protests having received and laundered a parcel of his clothes, mended a sark and returned all to him, whilst he was recording bothy ballads in Banffshire. An orra loon.
Brilliant 🤣💙
Ach, it’s not that cold.
Altocumulus and a vigorous Great spotted woodpecker. Waiting for a bus in Mid Calder. Bodes well for a day in the archives @edinburghuni.bsky.social
Brilliant evening at @cultarlann.bsky.social for Metagama - Atlantic Odyssey. If you get a chance to catch it , you won’t regret it. Tapadh leat @dsmurray.bsky.social and the rest of the talented team.
It’s World Poetry Day and I’m fair tricket to have an abstract accepted for a paper presentation about poet Helen B Cruickshank, at the ASL annual conference this summer.
And in a blink, light drains and renews in nocturnal glare.
#aberdeenharbour #fittie #thesilverdarling
Favourite place in the Silver City.
It’s a blue sky morning here in the glen.
“i want back my rocking chairs, / solipsist sunsets, / & coastal jungle sounds...”
A poem by Renee Nicole Good, who was murdered by ICE earlier today.
lithub.com/renee-nicole...
Second-hand books are the best. A useful haul in today’s post.
A ‘working’ copy of Octobiography by my muse, an anthology edited by founder of the Glenesk Folk Museum and the Cairns Craig volumes.
In the 140th anniversary of your birth dear Helen, I WILL get the book drafted.
#scottishliterature
We are delighted to publish Issue 6 of Paperboats Zine, Nature's Voice.
Edited by @alexnye.bsky.social and Ian Grosz and featuring a host of wonderful writers and poets.
Brew yourself a cuppa and settle down for an inspiring and uplifting read.
paperboats.org/category/zin...
Leaf mould black-brown, an upturned Peacock butterfly damaged; gently uprighted, plumage glows. A fleeting life. Rose-leaf stretchered to a geranium bloom grave, I bow my head in gratitude.
Ten minutes pass, maybe more. On my return it is gone.