#scottishpoets — Public Fediverse posts

I happened to browse one of the books in the place we’re staying on Skye for a few days, the Robin Bell edited The Best of Scottish Poetry (Chambers, 1989).

Subtitled “An Anthology of Contemporary Scottish Verse”, it does indeed contain some of my favourite Scottish poets of the second half of the twentieth century. Names like Edwin Morgan, Kathleen Jamie, George Mackay Brown, Liz Lochhead, Kenneth White, Alan Spence and Somhairle MacGill-Eain.

Oh, and (checks notes) Midge Ure. Yes, that Midge Ure.

#Poetry #ScottishPoetry #ScottishPoets #AndAlsoMidgeUre

A nice charity bookshop find today. I stumbled on this first edition hardback of Norrie Bissell’s great wee collection of poems, Slate, Sea and Sky: A Journey from Glasgow to the Isle of Luing (Luath Press, 2007). As well as Norrie’s wonderful poetry, the book also has a vivid array of photographs by the late Oscar Marzaroli.

#NormanBissell #NorrieBissell #ScottishPoetry #ScottishPoets #OscarMarzaroli #Glasgow #IsleOfLuing #Geopoetics #OpenWorld #Bookstodon @bookstodon

Herne Wood, Kenneth White
—from The Cold Wind of Dawn (Jonathan Cape, 1966)

#KennethWhite #ScottishPoets #ScottishPoetry #Geopoetics

I’m here to recommend the new (February 2026) collection of poems by Nicky Melville, ‘Get Tae’. Writing also as nick-e melville, he’s one of my favourite poets, Scottish or otherwise. His work is lucid, biting, often darkly funny, satirical and archly acquisitive (in the sense that he borrows brilliantly from the mundane, the political, film, and the realms of ad copy, among other things).

The book is available from Blue Diode Press, who also published his excellent selected poems, ‘Decade of Cu ts’.

https://www.bluediode.co.uk/product-page/get-tae-by-nicky-melville

#NickyMelville #Poetry #ScottishPoetry #ScottishPoets #Edinburgh #BlueDiodePress #Bookstodon @bookstodon

Looking forward to seeing Glenda Rome's documentary Expressing The Earth about Kenneth White and geopoetics. If you're in or near Edinburgh it's on at the Filmhouse on 22 April and there are a few tickets left. The trailer is really beautiful.

#Documentary #GlendaRome #KennethWhite #Poetry #ScottishPoets #Geopoetics #FilmhouseEdinburgh

https://expressingtheearth.com/

Thanks to @BellaCaledonia for the news about this petition to try and save the Kenneth White House of Artists and Writers in Trébeurden in the Côtes-d’Armor department in Brittany.

#KennethWhite #Poetry #ScottishPoets #ScottishThinkers #Geopoetics

https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/03/29/in-defence-of-the-kenneth-white-house-of-artists-and-writers/

In celebration of the centenary of Ian Hamilton Finlay’s birth.

#IanHamiltonFinlay #Poetry #Poem #ScottishPoetry #ScottishPoets #VisualPoetry

Ian Hamilton Finlay, ‘Sea Poppy 2’ (1968)

#IanHamiltonFinlay #ConcretePoetry #Poetry #ScottishPoets

I finally found an inexpensive copy of George Mackay Brown’s early (1965) volume of poems, The Year of the Whale. The cover design conjures another era altogether, one when—it seems—the publishing of “living” poets was something to be remarked upon.

The Year of the Whale contains one of my favourite of Brown’s poems, The Poet, the text of which is in the 2nd image. I've always thought those last four lines truly haunting.

#GeorgeMackayBrown #Poetry #ScottishPoetry #ScottishPoets #Bookstodon