home.social

#georgemackaybrown — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #georgemackaybrown, aggregated by home.social.

  1. “Brown’s headstone tells us who and what he was – a poet. It doesn’t say that he was Orkney’s laureate, singer of the islands, to the islanders a bringer of song, but then no-one coming to this spot would need telling.”

    —Peter Alan Ross visits George Mackay Brown’s grave

    smallfinds.substack.com/p/smal

    #Scottish #literature #poets #Orkney #20thcentury #GeorgeMackayBrown #grave #cemetery

  2. 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

    Published in CARVE THE RUNES (Polygon, 2021)

    birlinn.co.uk/product/carve-th

    #Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #poets #Orkney #20thcentury #GeorgeMackayBrown

  3. Remember, man, that thou art dust.

    The earl kneels, the ash of the end is written on his brow.

    A captain of ships kneels, to be put in mind of a death in a far port, or at home, or on a rock of the sea.

    And the boy that holds cinders for the priest,
    His forehead is smeared,
    Who wears a coat of fourteen Aprils…

    —George Mackay Brown, “Ash Wednesday”
    Published in TRAVELLERS (John Murray, 2013)

    #Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #religion #GeorgeMackayBrown #Orkney #AshWednesday

  4. On the loom of winter, shadows
    gather in a web; then the
    shuttle of St. Lucy makes a
    pause; a dark weave
    fills the room…

    —George Mackay Brown, “Maeshowe: Midwinter”
    in FOLLOWING A LARK (John Murray, 1996)

    5/5

    #Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #GeorgeMackayBrown #midwinter #solstice #Orkney #archaeology #prehistory #neolithic