Tag Archives: Hugh MacDiarmid

Micro-reviews (2): Desperate Fishwives

Here’s another enthusiastic response to being asked to read a book, this time one by the very fine Lindsay MacGregor, who first studied then taught at Dundee Uni, who hosts the Ladybank Platform readings, is part of StAnza’s constellation of … Continue reading

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The Great Slowing Down versus Poet MacDiarmid (3)

The interiorising impulse is a normal part of most writers’ cycle of composition and publication, but it became stronger for me with my father’s death, after which I spent a couple of years darting off to any far-off place that … Continue reading

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The Great Slowing Down versus Poet MacDiarmid (2)

So, as I think I was saying, the GSD equals a reluctance to complete these many waiting posts which isn’t entirely motivated by kindness to the passing reader. It has the air of a necessary recalibration, but the effect of … Continue reading

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Micro-reviews (1): Haurd Roads an Cauld Hairst Winds

(Translations into Scots from Du Fu and Li Bai by Brian Holton, Taproot Press, 2021) I’ve been meaning for a while to post a few of the micro-reviews I always end up writing whenever I’m asked for ‘a sentence or … Continue reading

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The Great Slowing Down versus Poet MacDiarmid (1)

I find in recent years two phenomena have influenced my diminished ability to write reflectively on ‘what’s happening’ (ie to maintain this blog). One is distracting phrases form in my mind with big, mock-serious, near-Germanic capitals at their heads: the … Continue reading

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G. Gregory Smith’s Gargoyle, or, Several Scottish Voices Gathered Together in Pittenweem and Grooving with Robert Wyatt

https://standupandspit.wordpress.com/2021/05/09/chic-murray/ – I love this outburst of Greenockian absurdism, particularly the moment where Chic claims he’s gone wrong, so runs through the whole poem again, again emphasising both its almost complete lack of sense and its entirely coherent structure. It’s … Continue reading

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Keaton, Carrington, Milligan: 3

(Warning, Will Robinson : this section seems to veer off at a tangent before returning to (what appears to be) the subject…) I was struck by a recent and very particular version of our impositions on the customary: the decision … Continue reading

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Pies, Poute, and the Poetry Mills of Victorian Dundee

It might make some sense to resume this blog where it left off, with a further reference to the ongoing work on Dundee writing in the 19th century. At the Dundee Literary Festival the other week, Professor Kirstie Blair and … Continue reading

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The Three Polis: Scots and Intralingual Translation

The panel I took part in on translation at last week’s Newcastle Poetry Festival raised a number of issues of equal fascination to both poets and translators, and, one would hope, readers of both. I found myself as excited by … Continue reading

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Close, 4

(The previous post involved me testing out and adapting one of Geddes’s ‘thinking machines’ – a little bit of neural coding, if you like. It helped me recognise that my tendencies to withdrawal, incrementalism, slapstickery, and to what I identified … Continue reading

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