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asls.org.uk
Association for Scottish Literature
@asls.org.uk
8.3K followers 2.1K following 4.9K posts
Educational charity promoting the reading, writing, teaching & study of Scotland's literature & languages, past & present.

https://asls.org.uk
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asls.org.uk
In a house by a river that lamented as it ran,
Lived a father, and his daughter, and the dog-headed man…

—Helen Adam, “A Tale Best Forgotten”
from TO GO INTO THE WOODS, by Norman Finkelstein, @uofmpress.bsky.social 2023
#poem #poetry
6/7
press.umich.edu/Books/T/To-G...
A Tale Best Forgotten by Helen Adam Hail most holy ANUBIS. In a house by a river that lamented as it ran, Lived a father, and his daughter, and the dog-headed man. A father, and his daughter, and the dog-headed man! It’s a tale best forgotten, but before the tale began From the house to the river limped the dog-headed man. Blood swelled the river before the tale began. In the garden, in the garden, while the river slowly ran, Walked the daughter, and her lover, and the dog-headed man. The daughter, and her lover, and the dog-headed man! It’s a tale best forgotten, but before the tale began His daughter, by the river that reflected as it ran, Fed the bones of her lover to the dog-headed man. Dog Head he was fed before the tale began.
December 2, 2025 at 1:49 PM
asls.org.uk
“Helen Adam is a poet’s poet, for it is in her own tribe that she has been most read and praised, despite her long history of public readings”

—Norman Finkelstein, in his chapter on Helen Adam in TO GO INTO THE WOODS, @uofmpress.bsky.social 2023
5/7
press.umich.edu/Books/T/To-G...
I was enchanted —that is precisely the right word — by the poetry of Helen Adam from the moment I read "I Love My Love" in Donald Allen's famous New American Poetry anthology. This was in 1973. At first I had difficulty finding more of her work, and it came as a wonderful surprise to see her poem "Troynovant Is Now No More a City" in the pages of the little magazine Endymion, edited by my friends David Katz and Linda Stern. Eventually I found her books, and then, in the summer of 1979, had lunch with her in her New York City apartment. I was one of the first critics to write at length on her poetry in the journal Credences and in my first book, The Utopian Moment. I then happily returned to it years later when Kristin Prevallet edited The Helen Adam Reader.
December 2, 2025 at 1:49 PM
asls.org.uk
“Helen brought witchcraft, horror ballads and camp attitude into the beatnik scene in San Francisco, to the dirty punk New York of the 70s and the queer Berlin of the 80s”

Helen Adam: Daydream of Darkness is a forthcoming documentary. Watch the trailer:
2/7
www.pickypictures.se/adaydreamofd...
Title screen: HELEN ADAM daydream of darkness The text is shown over an image of a distorted white shape lying against a red-brown background.
December 2, 2025 at 1:49 PM
asls.org.uk
When the day-birds have settled
in their creaking trees,
the doors of the forest open
for the flitting
drift of deer
among the bright croziers
of new ferns
and the legible stars…

—Robin Robertson, “What the Horses See at Night”
SAILING THE FOREST: Selected Poems
www.panmacmillan.com/authors/robi...
What the Horses See at Night by Robin Robertson When the day-birds have settled in their creaking trees, the doors of the forest open for the flitting drift of deer among the bright croziers of new ferns and the legible stars; foxes stream from the earth; a tawny owl frisks the long meadow. In a slink of river-light, the mink’s face is already slippery with yolk, and the bay’s tiny islands are drops of solder under a drogue moon. The sea’s a heavy sleeper, dreaming in and out with a catch in each breath, and is not disturbed by that plowt – the first in a play of herring, a shoal silvering open the sheeted black skin of the sea. Through the starting rain, the moon skirrs across the sky dragging torn shreds of cloud behind. The fox’s call is red and ribboned in the snow’s white shadow. The horses watch the sea climb and climb and walk towards them on the hill, hear the vole crying under the alder, our children breathing slowly in their beds.
December 1, 2025 at 1:39 PM
asls.org.uk
Scotland, you’re no mine
(you were no his)
and I don’t want you…

—Hannah Lavery, “Scotland, you’re no mine”
from BLOOD SALT SPRING (Birlinn, 2022)

A #poem for #StAndrewsDay
birlinn.co.uk/product/bloo...
Hannah Lavery SCOTLAND, YOU’RE NO MINE (you were no his) and I don’t want you. So go ahead, say I don’t belong, wi your sepia-tinged cross eye sweeping over all that swept-away, blood-stained, sweat-stained sugar for your tablet. Ya macaroon. Ya rotten, gobby, greedy, thieving bastard you, sitting atop a that shite and broken bones, weeping, Poor me. Fuck you! I will dance jigs on your flags blue n white; blue, white n red. It doesne matter but, ya wee chancer! Fuck! For making us complicit, handing us whip and chains, an officer’s coat, a civil-service pen, a Queen to love. And lay me out, I love you with your mountain thyme and all your coorie in. And you can say, I dinnae belong to you – go on – but I am limpet stuck on you. So fuck you for no seeing one of your own. I will, here. I will spill, here, my blood and your secrets, bleed into you, root and earth, and you, forever, pagan, will, in the spill and the seep, see all you really are. So fuck you, my sweet forgetful Caledonia. With love, fuck you.
November 30, 2025 at 5:22 PM
asls.org.uk
Scotland’s a sense of change, an endless
becoming for which there was never a kind
of wholeness or ultimate category.
Scotland’s an attitude of mind.

—Maurice Lindsay, “Speaking of Scotland”
A poem for #StAndrewsDay
#poem #poetry
www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/speakin...
Speaking of Scotland by Maurice Lindsay What do you mean when you speak of Scotland? The grey defeats that are dead and gone behind the legends each generation savours afresh, yet can’t live on? Lowland farms with their broad acres peopling crops? The colder earth of the North East? Or Highland mountains shouldering up their rocky dearth? Inheritance of guilt that our country has never stood where we feel she should? A nagging threat of unfinished struggle somehow forever lost in the blood? Scotland’s a sense of change, an endless becoming for which there was never a kind of wholeness or ultimate category. Scotland’s an attitude of mind.
November 30, 2025 at 5:00 PM
asls.org.uk
The siller moonlicht straiks ower
this boorach o neds that jumped me,
hellbent oan ma daith…

—Frances Robson, “Daith o Saint Andrew”

A Scots poem for #StAndrewsDay – inspired by Peter Howson’s “Andrew, Portrait of a Saint”
#poem #poetry
www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/daith-o...
Daith o Saint Andrew by Frances Robson The siller moonlicht straiks ower this boorach o neds that jumped me, hellbent oan ma daith. Ah feel the reek o nicotine an mingin bodies. There’s Auld Bawheid, gowpin lik a trout; an Wee Yin bummin’ awa at me an speirin: Haw, Andra, whaur’s yer God noo? Naething lik bein stark deid, is there, pal? Thir’s a hale tsunami o fowk soomin towards me: some wifies are staunin lik bubblyjocks at Christmas. But wan lassie is hunkered doon oan a cauld stane in the clarty watter unner ma feet, luikin glaikit an disjaskit, as if she’s hud a lugfu o Sunday sermons. Here’s nae place fur a lassie. Whit are they daein here? Is there naethin oan telly? Or is the Net doon oan thir computers? Ocht, wid ye luik at thir een poppin oot thir heids, ettlin fur a wee swatch o me hingin here? This wisnae whit Ah’d planned when Ah tuik ma career break fae fishin. Ah shuldnae huv listened tae aw that patter aboot fishin fur men – whit a load o guff! Insteid o hingin here by a threid, raxed oot lik an Arbroath smokie an flung ower a saltire. Thir’s nae rest fur the wicked! An Ah’m gey feart an dinnae ken whaur Ah’ll be the morra. Andrew, Portrait of a Saint by Peter Howson. Oil on canvas, 2007 Saint Andrew, his limbs twisted, is being bound onto an X-shaped cross with thick, snake-lie ropes. A crowd of figures throng around him, with lumpen, mis-shaped heads, limbs, and faces. The scene is lit strongly from above, casting deep shadows. In the top right hand corner, a cold blue moon shines through clouds of smoke connecting the earth and sky.
November 30, 2025 at 12:06 PM
asls.org.uk
The Little White Rose
(To John Gawsworth)

The rose of all the world is not for me.
I want for my part
Only the little white rose of Scotland
That smells sharp and sweet—and breaks the heart.

—Hugh MacDiarmid, “The Little White Rose”
A #StAndrewsDay poem
www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46800/...
A small spray of white Scottish roses, some open, some just beginning to bud. Prickly stems bearing neat, fern-like, dark green foliage carry cupped, single, creamy-white flowers with pale yellow centres.
November 30, 2025 at 11:07 AM
asls.org.uk
I would like to tell her not to wear such flimsy shoes,
that rubble contains the whole spectrum of knowable
and unknowable dangers…

—Marjorie Lotfi, “Picture of Girl and Small Boy (Burij, Gaza, 2014)”
THE WRONG PERSON TO ASK, @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social 2023
#poem #poetry
www.un.org/en/observanc...
Picture of Girl and Small Boy (Burij, Gaza, 2014) Marjorie Lotfi I would like to tell her not to wear such flimsy shoes, that rubble contains the whole spectrum of knowable and unknowable dangers: sheets of metal ripped to knife edge, live wires, bloated arms reaching for light. Her hair, scraped back into a ponytail, is open to sky; remnants of buildings filter down one concrete chunk at a time, and the midday bells of rockets ring out above her. She carries a boy on her still narrow hips, his legs entwined around her yellow dungarees. Like a rodeo rider, his left arm grips her shoulder to steady himself, or her, while his torso reels back and away; his body is asking to slow down, to turn back. Instead, her eyes comb the ground for a next step, fingers of her free hand curled into a claw, as if to frighten off what she somehow sees ahead. A Palestinian girl carries a child across rubble from a building that police said was destroyed by an Israeli air strike, in the Burij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, August 1, 2014. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly. Marjorie Lotfi's poem describes the picture in detail: Picture of Girl and Small Boy (Burij, Gaza, 2014) Marjorie Lotfi I would like to tell her not to wear such flimsy shoes, that rubble contains the whole spectrum of knowable and unknowable dangers: sheets of metal ripped to knife edge, live wires, bloated arms reaching for light. Her hair, scraped back into a ponytail, is open to sky; remnants of buildings filter down one concrete chunk at a time, and the midday bells of rockets ring out above her. She carries a boy on her still narrow hips, his legs entwined around her yellow dungarees. Like a rodeo rider, his left arm grips her shoulder to steady himself, or her, while his torso reels back and away; his body is asking to slow down, to turn back. Instead, her eyes comb the ground for a next step, fingers of her free hand curled into a claw, as if to frighten off what she somehow sees ahead.
November 29, 2025 at 1:59 PM
asls.org.uk
“…till the end of time young folk (who are not yet used with the duplicity of life & men) will struggle as I did, & make heroical resolves, & take long risks; & the course of events will push them upon the one side & go on like a marching army.”

—Robert Louis Stevenson, CATRIONA
#BookWormSat 💙📚
So there was the final upshot of my politics! Innocent men have perished before James, and are like to keep on perishing (in spite of all our wisdom) till the end of time. And till the end of time young folk (who are not yet used with the duplicity of life and men) will struggle as I did, and make heroical resolves, and take long risks; and the course of events will push them upon the one side and go on like a marching army. James was hanged; and here was I dwelling in the house of Prestongrange, and grateful to him for his fatherly attention. He was hanged; and behold! when I met Mr. Simon in the causeway, I was fain to pull off my beaver to him like a good little boy before his dominie. He had been hanged by fraud and violence, and the world wagged along, and there was not a pennyweight of difference; and the villains of that horrid plot were decent, kind, respectable fathers of families, who went to kirk and took the sacrament!
November 29, 2025 at 1:15 PM
asls.org.uk
“I am trying to make a start at the Diary the English have challenged me to write. There is no call to begin tonight, for as yet not a flake has fallen…”

JM Barrie’s “Farewell Miss Julie Logan”: an uncanny romance between a minister & a mysterious young woman, set in a snow-locked glen
#FolkyFriday
I am trying to make a start at the Diary the English have challenged me to write. There is no call to begin tonight, for as yet not a flake has fallen in this my first winter in the glen; and the Diary is to be a record of my life here during the weeks ('tis said it may be months) in which the glen is 'locked,' meaning it may be so happit in snow that no one who is in can get out of it, and no one who is out can get in. Then, according to the stories that crawl like mists among our hills, where the English must have picked them up, come forms called the 'Strangers.' You 'go queer' yourself without knowing it and walk and talk with these doolies, thinking they are of your world till maybe they have mischieved you. It is all, of course, superstitious havers, bred of folk who are used to the travail of out of doors, and take ill with having to squat by the saut-bucket; but I have promised with a smile to keep my eyes and ears intent for tergiversations among my flock, and to record them for the benefit of the English when they come back next August. My name is the Rev. Adam Yestreen; and to be candid I care not for the Adam with its unfortunate associations. I am twenty-six years of age and, though long in the legs, look maybe younger than is seemly in my sacred calling, being clean-shaven without any need to use an implement; indeed I may say I have desisted for two years back. I took a fair degree at St Andrews, but my Intellectuals suffered from […]
November 28, 2025 at 5:39 PM
asls.org.uk
“From Scotland to the World”: The Poetry of Hope Mirrlees, Helen Adam, Muriel Spark, & Veronica Forrest-Thomson
—Dorothy McMillan, HUMANITIES 8/4, 2019

Dorothy McMillan discusses four 20th-century women writers “poised… between Scotland and Modernism”
#poetry #modernism
www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/8/...
Abstract The four poets that provide the material for this chapter did not know each other and they probably did not know each other’s work. However, they had important formative experiences in common: They were all educated in Scotland and they all left Scotland after that early education. Yet, they all retained special, although different, ties to that country, to its history, and its writing. They were all “modern” in their poetry, sometimes bizarrely so: Of each of them it could be said, “There was no one like her.” This strangeness they also share, as they share a willingness, even desire, to shock, a muddling of contemporary and archaic, of real and legendary. Veronica Forrest-Thomson’s “Hold on to your seat-belt Persephone” is an indicative phrase. I aim to show that these serially inimitable modern writers have complicated and intertwined Scottish and international connections. Keywords: Scotland; ballads; kaleidoscope; Charles Bernstein; Edwin Morgan
November 28, 2025 at 4:12 PM
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Oot behind a lorry,
Peyin nae heed,
Ablow a doubledecker,
A poor wean deid…

—James Copeland (1918–2002), “Black Friday”

Actor & writer James Gordon Copeland’s much anthologised poem “Black Friday” packs tragedy, compassion, & a sense of close community into nine short verses
#poem #poetry
Black Friday James Copeland Oot behind a lorry, Peyin nae heed, Ablow a doubledecker, A poor wean deid. Perra worn sannies, Wee durrty knees, Heh, erra polis, Stand back please! Lookit the conductriss. Face as white as chalk, Heh, see the driver but Cannae even talk. Anyone a witness? Na, we niver saw. Glad ah’m no the polis Goin tae tell its maw. Weemen windae-hingin Herts in their mooth, It’s no oor close, Lizzie Oh Gawdstrewth! Screams on the landin, Twa closes doon, It’s no wee Hughie! Poor Nellie Broon. Phone up the shipyard. Oh, what a shame! Yes, we'll inform him, Please repeat the name. See Big Hughie, Jokin wi the squad, Better knock off, Heug, Oh dear God. Whit – no his laddie? Aw, bloody hell! D’ye see Hughie’s face but, He’s just a boy himsel.
November 28, 2025 at 2:43 PM
asls.org.uk
“For the uninitiated: she’s a literary cult figure, a rising star of British post-World War II poetry and criticism whose career came to an abrupt halt when she died suddenly in 1975, at age 27… Today, Forrest-Thomson is more relevant than ever”
#poetry
2/3
www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/142...
A colour photo of Veronica Forrest-Thomson, in the washed-out, muted tones of an early 1970s Polaroid. A young woman with short brown hair, she is wearing a sleeveless dress with a high neckline, patterned with abstract grey lines and squares on a white background. She is standing in front of a large bush with green leaves and clumps of pink and white flowers, looking off to our right.
November 28, 2025 at 2:05 PM
asls.org.uk
Mirror, mirror on the wall
show me in succession all
my faces, that I may view
and choose which I would like as true…

—“Through the Looking Glass”, by Veronica Forrest-Thomson (1947–1975) – born #OTD, 28 Nov
from COLLECTED POEMS (Shearsman, 2008)
#poetry
1/3
www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/143680...
Through the Looking Glass by Veronica Forrest-Thomson Mirror, mirror on the wall show me in succession all my faces, that I may view and choose which I would like as true. Teach me skill to disguise what’s not pleasing to the eyes, with faith, that life obeys the rules, in man or God or football pools. Always keep me well content to decorate attitude and event so that somehow behind the scene I may believe my actions mean; that one can exercise control in playing out a chosen role; rub clouded glass and then, at will, write self on it again. But if, in some unlucky glance, I should glimpse naked circumstance in all its nowhere-going-to, may you crack before I do.
November 28, 2025 at 2:05 PM
asls.org.uk
So on the bus through late November running
by yellow lights tormented, darkness falling,
the two girls sang for miles and miles together…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Two Girls Singing”
published in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2021
#poem #poetry
www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...
Two Girls Singing by Iain Crichton Smith It neither was the words nor yet the tune. Any tune would have done and any words. Any listener or no listener at all. As nightingales in rocks or a child crooning in its own world of strange awakening or larks for no reason but themselves. So on the bus through late November running by yellow lights tormented, darkness falling, the two girls sang for miles and miles together and it wasn’t the words or tune. It was the singing. It was the human sweetness in that yellow, the unpredicted voices of our kind.
November 27, 2025 at 3:30 PM
asls.org.uk
“It appeared there was to be a play or concert on Christmas Eve… I several times heard the words ‘troupe of angels’, ‘shepherds’, ‘ridiculous price’ & ‘my girls’ …”

—A biblically accurate angel interrupts a Nativity play in Muriel Spark’s “The Seraph & the Zambesi”
#BookologyThursday 💙📚
'Who in hell are you?' said Cramer, gasping through the heat. 'The same as in Heaven,' came the reply, 'a Seraph, that's to say.' 'Tell that to someone else,' Cramer panted. 'Do I look like a fool?' 'I will. No nor a Seraph either,' said the Seraph. The place was filling with heat from the Seraph. Cramer's paint was running into his eyes and he wiped them on his net robe. Walking backward to a less hot place he cried, 'Once and for all –' 'That's correct,' said the Seraph. '– this is my show,' continued Cramer. 'Since when?' the Seraph said. 'Right from the start,' Cramer breathed at him. 'Well it's been mine from the Beginning,' said the Seraph, 'and the Beginning began first.' Climbing down from the hot stage, Cramer caught his seraphic robe on a nail and tore it. 'Listen here,' he said, 'I can't conceive of an abnormality like you being a true Seraph.' 'True,' said the Seraph.
November 27, 2025 at 1:50 PM
asls.org.uk
Hoy Sound Unscrolled
a poetry reading with Heather H. Yeung
9 Dec, Stromness, ticketed

On the 9th anniversary of the creation of her 9-metre-long scroll-poem KENNINGS, Orkney poet Heather Yeung (楊希蒂) launches the book version of her poem/artefact
#poetry
www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/str...
A piece of paper stained a deep blue, with a more concentrated colour forming waves at the bottom above the paper's white edge. The words HOY SOUND UNSCROLLED are printed in white across the top, and spill over the edges of the image. The author's name, HEATHER H. YEUNG is printed in white across the bottom.
November 27, 2025 at 1:11 PM
asls.org.uk
The Gaelic Writings of Dòmhnall Mac na Ceàrdaich (Donald Sinclair): a celebration
5 Dec, Glasgow – free

An introduction to “a crucial writer for those wishing to cast light upon the understudied crossroads of Gaelic literature in the early 20th century”
For more information email [email protected]
Event poster OIDHCHE D.M.N.C. 7pm, Friday 5th December 2025 An Lochran, Glaschu BOOK LAUNCH The Gaelic Writings of Dòmhnall Mac na Ceardaich (Donald Sinclair) Sgriobhte le Aonghas MacLeoid. An Lochran, 22 Mansfield Street, Glaschu G11 5QP More info: dmnc46@posteo.net "A crucial writer...innovative...cosmopolitan...international...satirist of the upper-classes...pacifist...land reformer...His death at forty-six was not particularly well-recognised by academia for a number of decades..." Refreshments will be served EVENT IN GAELIC AND ENGLISH
November 26, 2025 at 5:47 PM
asls.org.uk
Skint, baw ragged, poackets ful eh ma
fingers, cannae afford tae burn toast an
it’s November. Christmas is close…

—William Letford, “This is it”
Published in DIRT, @carcanet.bsky.social 2016
#poem #poetry
www.carcanet.co.uk/978178410200...
This Is It by William Letford Skint, baw ragged, poackets ful eh ma fingers, cannae afford tae burn toast an it’s November. Christmas is close. Av been away bit noo am back an ivery coarner is a different colour cause am hame an memories ur painted wae mischief. Am outside Gregs eatin a macaroni pie an a busker picks up eez guitar an plugs in eez amplifier. The sound fae the strings is like frost. Eez young an the dreams thit wur boarn in eez bedroom wake me up. Am watchin people passin an they know thit eez good bit they don’t want tae look. They turn thur heeds an tilt thur ears an jog on. If a hud a spare pound a wid throw it bit a don’t so a jist listen. I’d like tae tell um thit this is it, this is where the hammer hits the stane an sparks ur made, standin oan a corner in yur hame toon, an audience eh one radge eatin a macaroni pie, bit singin, wee man, yur singin.
November 26, 2025 at 2:16 PM
asls.org.uk
Bless this house, wherever it is,
This house and this and this and this,

Pitched shaky as small nomad tents
Within Victorian permanence…

—William McIlvanney, “Bless this house: a sampler for Glasgow bedsits”
#poem #poetry
7/9
Bless this house: a sampler for Glasgow bedsits William McIlvanney Bless this house, wherever it is, This house and this and this and this, Pitched shaky as small nomad tents Within Victorian permanence, Where no names stay long, no families meet In Observatory Road and Clouston Street, Where Harry and Sally who want to be 'free' And Morag who works in the BBC And Andy the Artist and Mhairi and Fran (Whose father will never understand) And John from Kilmarnock and Jean from the Isles And Michael who jogs every day for miles And Elspeth are passing through this year: Bless them the short time they are here. Bless the cup left for a month or more On the dust of the window-ledge, the door That won't quite shut, the broken fan, The snowscape of fat in the frying pan. Bless each burnt chop, each unseen smile That they may nourish their hopes a while. Bless the persistence of their faith, The gentle incense of their breath. Bless the wild dreams that are seeded here, The lover to come, the amazing career. Bless such small truths as they may find By the lonely night-light of the mind. Bless these who camp out in the loss of the past And scavenge their own from what others have lost, Who have courage to reach for what they cannot see And have gambled what was for what may never be. So turn up the Hi Fi, Michael and John. What is to come may be already gone. And pull up the covers, Jean and Mhairi. The island is far and you've missed the ferry.
November 25, 2025 at 2:06 PM
asls.org.uk
“Scottishness is not some pedigree lineage. This is a mongrel tradition!”

William McIlvanney (1936–2015) – author & poet (& provider, at a rally in Edinburgh in 1992, of our profile header, as quoted in Neal Ascherson’s 2002 book STONE VOICES) – was born #OTD, 25 November

A 🎂 🧵
💙📚
1/9
And then, in a tone of tremendous pride, he said this. “Scottishness is not some pedigree lineage. This is a mongrel tradition!” At those words, for reasons which perhaps neither he nor they ever quite understood, the crowd broke into cheers and applause which lasted on and on.
November 25, 2025 at 2:06 PM
asls.org.uk
The night tinkles like ice in glasses.
Leaves are glued to the pavement with frost.
The brown air fumes at the shop windows,
Tries the doors, and sidles past…

—Norman MacCaig, “November Night”
published in The Poems of Norman MacCaig (Birlinn, 2011)
#poem #poetry
birlinn.co.uk/product/the-...
Norman MacCaig November night, Edinburgh The night tinkles like ice in glasses. Leaves are glued to the pavement with frost. The brown air fumes at the shop windows, Tries the doors, and sidles past. I gulp down winter raw. The heady Darkness swirls with tenements. In a brown fuzz of cottonwool Lamps fade up crags, die into pits. Frost in my lungs is harsh as leaves Scraped up on paths. – I look up, there, A high roof sails, at the mast-head Fluttering a grey and ragged star. The world’s a bear shrugged in his den. It’s snug and close in the snoring night. And outside like chrysanthemums The fog unfolds its bitter scent.
November 24, 2025 at 4:34 PM
asls.org.uk
Reading Scotland with Margaret Bennet
Why Scotland Celebrates St Andrew's Day
2 Dec, online – free

Dr Margaret Bennet talks about the relevance of celebrating St Andrew’s Day today & dives into the origins of this national holiday
www.scotland.uni-mainz.de/reading-scot...
READING SCOTLAND with Margaret Bennett Why Scotland Celebrates St Andrew's Day Tuesday 2nd December 2025 6.00–7.30 pm (German time) on MS Teams www.scotland.uni-mainz.de
November 24, 2025 at 4:03 PM
asls.org.uk
I’m seeking a young, clever woman, cute enough
to prompt a smile, armed with enough pity for
the dregs of the universe…

—Tracey S. Rosenberg, “The Time Lord’s Job Advertisement”
published in THE FLIGHT OF THE TURTLE: New Writing Scotland 29 (ASL, 2011)
A #sciencefiction #poem for #DoctorWhoDay
Tracey S. Rosenberg The Time Lord’s Job Advertisement I’m seeking a young, clever woman, cute enough to prompt a smile, armed with enough pity for the dregs of the universe. Your tears, frequent but not excessive, would be a charming grace note to my stoic ability to leap towards the next crisis (or to kill, when I decide that’s an act of mercy). When chaos erupts, be prepared to run across sand or grass or slivered emeralds, clutching treasures. (Nebula eggs? Sacred books bound in the queen’s flesh? After the danger, I can explain their importance, and pat your shoulder as you cry again.) If you collect trinkets, you can lay them out in stark rows and ponder, with a light smile, each glittering memory. Don’t fall in love. Long hours a given and by the Gods, you must care. Stay curious – you will learn such strangeness here – and brighten at each fresh spark of wonder I provide you. Ask many questions, and appreciate my answers. Glean useful hints from the natives, even if they have scales or gobble their food upside down, and inform me at opportune times so I may instantly produce the solution. Under no circumstance will you prove me wrong. Strip down your pride. Don’t second-guess me and stop pretending to know what you’re doing. You’ll ask for my help whether you like it or not. Space is bordered by an iron-spiked fence; time collapses into how, this moment, you can assist me. Don’t even think about losing that key. At some hour, I’ll glance across this console, watching you coax your treasures into place, and I’ll know from the tilt of your head that you’re dreaming of spiral torrents – stars spiked into the arch of a tent beneath which we two twine white-hot at infinity’s core. Your final tears will come after I push you out the too-small door, grinning my pitiless smile. Stand bewildered on a pavement, clutching a string bag of tawdry souvenirs. Whirl to seek what vanishes behind you. Save your pity. Stop crying.
November 23, 2025 at 4:36 PM