For #worldbooknight I'm delighting in the chance that made these short stories catch my eye in @uofglibrary.bsky.social I've known and loved Para Handy and Erchie for years, it's just wonderful to find some thing by Neil Munro that I didn't know existed.
As a life-long library user, I can only agree.
The joy of accidentally being in #Kelvingrove for the organ recital.
#Glasgow
#musicforall
#glasgowlife
Burns wrote poems here. Having a marvellous time with the ScotLit Dept @uofgnews.bsky.social
I'm not a Burnsian, but this place is brilliant.
#EllislandFarm
#RobertBurns
#ScottishLiterature
#UniversityofGlasgow
An advertisement for the AMAEM conference, reading "Pat Mason, 'When the fighting is over: Depictions of treatment of PoWs in John Spalding's History of the Troubles', online and in-person". A picture of Pat, a grey haired woman facing the camera, is in the top left corner, and a manuscript image of medieval rabbits at war borders the right.
Pat Mason, a PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, will be presenting 'When the fighting is over: Depictions of treatment of PoWs in John Spalding's History of the Troubles'.
The @amaemconference.bsky.social is looking good. I've got my room booked, my place booked, now I just have to write the actual paper.
An advertisement for the 2nd Aberdeen Medieval and Early Modern Conference that reads "Aberdeen Medieval and Early Modern Conference, 'Violence in the Medieval and Early Modern North', 25 May (in the Craig Suite of the Sir Duncan Rice Library), 26 May (in the Lower Ground Floor Seminar Room of the Sir Duncan Rice Library). A picture at top is Jacques Callot's La Pendaison (The Hanging), from Les Grandes Misères de la guerre (The Great Miseries of War).
Stay tuned to see our programme of speakers for our second Aberdeen Medieval and Early Modern Conference! Registration will soon open, so keep an eye out for the link!
on #nationalunicornday I like to remind everyone that unicorns are real. 🦄
They are fat, and grey and we call them rhinoceros. 🦏
I'm delighted to be presenting at @amaemconference.bsky.social in May this year.
The conference theme is 'violence', and treatment of PoWs in the seventeenth century was far from humane.
I'll be talking about Spalding's description of the fate of prisoners after the Battle of the Brig of Dee.
“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
“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”
#Easter #poetry #concretepoetry
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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.
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
#medievalsky #Easter
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Surrexit dominus de sepulchro.
He is risen.
Alleluia.
Easter Blessings to all.
'Harrowing of Hell'
George Mackay Brown.
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
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”
in THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF SCOTTISH VERSE, @canongate.co.uk 2021
#Easter #poetry #GoodFriday
canongate.co.uk/books/3267-t...
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.
The cold Roman eye, hand on seal.
Vale. Take the thief away…
—George Mackay Brown, “Stations of the Cross: The Good Thief”
published in CARVE THE RUNES: Selected Poems (Birlinn, 2021)
#Easter #GoodFriday #poem #poetry
birlinn.co.uk/product/carv...
We’re still going with our Easter, but with a new time of 1pm–3pm to avoid the worst of the weather.
Please dress for the conditions and we’ll aim for a fun day whatever the forecast!
Thanks as always for your support.
Christ in the sepulchre guarded by angels
William Blake c.1805
First visit of the year to @govanstones.bsky.social today. Open 11am to 4pm every day from now until the end of October. Admission free.
It’s all about nuclear anxiety today as Ollie Greenall talks to us about his research.
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@sgsah.bsky.social
#thebletherpgr
#theblether
#scottishliterature
@royal-mail.bsky.social
Arrived today, in a major city, 11 days after being posted first class in London. It's taking longer every issue. I wonder if there's a story for @privateeyenews.bsky.social in this? The new owner was just in Parliament a few days moaning about our expectations.
A black and white archive photograph of a cat sitting on a cannon and arching his back. A dog is sitting right in front of the cannon.
It's Saturday but it's also #RespectYourCatDay so if you're ever sitting in front of a cannon with a cat near the firing mechanism then you better make sure you show it some respect. #Caturday
A real life Tom & Jerry cartoon from our Photographic Archive.
I'm so delighted to be involved in setting up a symposium on 17th C Scotland. It now has a @bsky.app presence. Early-modern researchers, please give us a wee follow, and consider joining us on 11 June @scot17thcentury.bsky.social
Sprung!
Twice in the year, around the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, the sunrise shines right along Ingram Street, turning the Iron Duke, his steed, Copenhagen, and even his traffic cone hat into a shadowy work of art against the great doors of GoMA.
Picture: u/Hoyerman68
So throw those curtains wide
One day like this a year would see me right...
Cartoon: Bud Neill
I wrote a thing about caves and our recent #ScotLit trip to the Isle of Arran. Sign up to the link here if you’d like to read it. Also, The Blether is very good, so you’d be doing yourself a favour anyhow… 👍🏻
What do hills, spiders, caves and castles all have in common?
Sign up to the Blether today via the link below and find out in our special Arran editions.
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#thebletherpgr
#theblether
#scottishliterature
More braw
@uofgartshums.bsky.social
ScotLit reading weekend on the glorious island of Arran. Kinloch Hotel is the perfect venue. Blackwaterfoot is just perfect.
#Blackwaterfoot
#Arran, #islandofarran #scottishliterature #scottishislands #reading
