Scots
Posts related to the Scots language or writing in the language.
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Today, as readers of Wednesday’s post and anyone who pays exceptionally close attention to the dedication in The Ambulance Box will know, is Aidan’s 10th birthday. Although I posted “The Condition” on Wednesday, I could not let the day itself go by unmarked here, so I give you this abnominal for Aidan, which was first published
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A quick reminder that I’m reading tonight at 7:30pm at the CCA in Glasgow alongside Máire Wren, Colette Ní Ghallchoír and Aonghas MacNeacail as part of an Irish Pages event in association with Conradh na Gaeilge Glaschú. It’s also the Scottish launch of our current tenth-anniversary issue, “Self”, which will be on sale alongside another
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I have three readings coming up in the next several weeks. The first, on Saturday 15 June at 7:30 pm in the CCA in Glasgow is an event from Irish Pages and Conradh na Gaeilge Glaschú as part of Glasgow’s Irish Language Festival, Féile na Gaeilge Glaschú 2013. I will be chairing and reading at this event,
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The new issue of Irish Pages, entitled Memory, has just arrived today. It includes work by Michael Longley and Wendell Berry as well as a substantial contribution by David Kinloch. It also happens to be the first issue which I have had some editorial input, my contribution on that side being a beautiful poem by
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You can now download the Scots glossary for The North End of the Possible from the Writing page on this website or directly from this link.
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I had an amazing weekend at Wigtown Book Festival. My previous experience of the town, described here, could not have been any more of a contrast. There was a real buzz about the place and, unsurprisingly, I kept bumping into people I know from the literary scene. The town seemed to have come into its
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I’ve been trying for ages to write something that uses various Scots words and phrases for, or connected with, rain. It only occurred to me recently that vispo/concrete poetry might be a productive approach for this project, which I’m calling “In Wir Element”. This is the first of what I hope will be several pieces
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The Herald‘s annual Scots language poetry competition, the McCash, was launched last week. The full article about this year’s competition, including winning poems from previous years, is here. However, you need to have an account at the paper — which is free — if you want to read the whole article, so here are the
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At last you can see me haver briefly about The Ambulance Box in the video that Jen Hamilton-Emery took before the Northern Salt reading at the Manchester Literature Festival. Here it is in all its autumnal Manucunian glory: Over at the Salt blog, you can also see new videos of Tony Williams (whose book was
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My contributors copy of The Edinburgh Review 127 arrived in the post on Thursday. This issue is dedicated to Iraq and includes five of my Scots translations of poems from Sinan Antoon‘s The Baghdad Blues. I had the pleasure of meeting Sinan when he was in Edinburgh for the Reel Iraq festival. I’ve not had
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Technically, I’ve let the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns‘s birth pass without comment, but I could hardly let it pass without mention, even if a touch belated. I’m not going to regail you with an online immortal memory; I’ll simply point you in the direction of one of my favourite pieces of Burns. I love
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The Today programme’s interview with Jen Hadfield is here, along with all the recordings they’ve done of the other shortlisted writers. Worth a listen. She sounds a touch tired. Good on her! Seeing the shortlist again just emphasises how stunning a success this is for her. Not just for her, but for the younger poetry
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That’s got to have been the best wee festival in the world we had the weekend before last. What a cracker LBF 08 was! Fiona Hyslop, the Scottish Government education secretary and a Lithgae resident, launched the festival and christened our new participants autograph book. She stayed around for Christopher Brookmyre‘s sell-out event. There was
Amy Jo Philip 