Highlights from the Scottish Parliament Climate Action 23rd November, 2023. Featured image shows Kathleen Jamie (left) setting sail a paperboat. Credit: Paperboat collective On a bright blustery morning people gathered from across Edinburgh and Scotland, outside the Scottish Parliament for the Paperboats campaign. In the run up to COP28, writers and activists from the collective joined …
Poem No. X: Butterfly A shred of torn wallpaper calls a dying butterfly to mind. It is a secret mouth in touch with the other world. One day, I see a dying butterfly, examining my beard in the mirror. The butterfly with drooping wings drinks dewdrops curdled in a warm breath. If I die …
Earthworm It is not sad not to be human nor is living entirely within the earth demeaning or empty: it is the nature of the mind to defend its eminence, as it is the nature of those who walk on the surface to fear the depths – one’s position determines one’s feelings. And yet to …
The Sound Of It The rain stopped you never hear it stop then the dripping from the trees and then how could anyone hear it not falling not arriving and then not arriving other things must be happening that way unheard all around us you never hear the dog stop barking whether you are …
I Am Tired I am tired, that is clear, Because, at a certain stage, people have to be tired. Of what I am tired, I don’t know: It would not serve me at all to know Since the tiredness stays just the same. The wound hurts as it hurts And not in function …
Wind among the Pines The wind blows hard among the pines Toward the beginning Of an endless past. Listen: you’ve heard everything. Shell Nothing, nothing at all is born, dies, the shell says again and again from the depths of hollowness. Its body swept off by tide – so what? It sleeps …
Taking place from Thursday 11th to Sunday 14th May, this year’s McLellan Poetry Fringe Festival has a really exciting line up. Read on to find out what the 2023 programme has in store and details of how to book. McLellan Poetry Fringe Festival 2023 Opening Night Join us for the opening night of the McLellan …
Under the cherry blossoms strangers are not really strangers (Translation by Zoria P. K.) Goes out, comes back— the love life of a cat. (Translation by Robert Haas) All the time I pray to Buddha I keep on killing mosquitoes. (Translation by Robert Haas) Kobayashi Issa (1763 – 1828) …
when the poem’s out a sense in the body like the energy left in a twig after a bird has flown across the inlet night falls off the edge of a heron’s shout I have listened to the stories told by fox and stream and star. And they all say – …
The Attributes of a Gentleman Chess I’m eager to play, nine skills I know, I scarcely forget runes, book and handicraft are my custom, I can glide on skis, I shoot and row as will serve, I know how to consider both harp-playing and poetry. Earl Rongvald Kali (St Ronald of Orkney) (d.1158) …