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For the latest Scots Whay Hae! podcast Ali caught up with writer Karen Campbell to talk about her latest novel This Bright Life, which will be published later this month with Canongate Books.Karen gives a synopsis of the novel before breaking down the three central characters of Gerard, Margaret and Claire and their role in events, why it had to be set in Glasgow, and, more widely, the importance of place.The two then talk about Karen's novels more generally (this is her ninth), the themes and ideas which interest her, writing about people who all too rarely appear on the page, and how she has changed as a writer over time. There is also a conversation about other Scottish novels, Lewis Grassic Gibbon and Hugh MacDiarmid, and the notable impact of, and response to, her previous novel Paper Cup. It's always a pleasure to talk to Karen, and with This Bright Life one of SWH!'s Ten Books for 2025 it was a privilege to be able to discuss it in such detail.Full details, including all the ways to listen, are over at scotswhayhae.com
Join Gary for a Halloween special, and hear about some of the deep rooted traditions associated with the festival and what lies behind them. And of course there is plenty of appropriate pipe music to lighten the mood, with sets from Lincoln Hilton, Steve Byrne, The Victoria Police Pipe Band, the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, John MacLean, Troy MacGillivray and Hugh MacDiarmid's Haircut. There's a full rendition of Robert Burns' epic tale, Tam O'Shanter, and a seldom heard reply from his wife, Kate! So grab your turnip lantern (or pumpkin if you must!), get the fancy dress on, and let's go guising!Thanks to my sponsorhttps://rghardiestore.com/TracksThe Hell Bound Train by the Victoria Police Pipe Band from Piping UpTrick or Treat by Lincoln Hilton Halloween by Steve Byrne from The Piper and the Maker 2 - Celebrating CThe Piper's Weird by Troy MacGillivray from Westering Home The Devil in the Kitchen, Calum Crubach, the Black Snuff Mill and Sleepy Maggie by John MacLean from the Second Grand Concert of PipingThe Haunting, Drops of Brandy, Lewis Jig, Patrick's Annabel, Give Us a Drink of Water, Paddy be Easy, and The Foxhunter by the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band from AffirmationThe Pumpkin's Fancy, The Easy Club Reel, The Clumsy Lover and Break Yer Bass Drone by Hugh MacDiarmid's Haircut from Airs From Your ElbowSupport the show
In this podcast Jennifer Williams interviews poet William Bonar about the publication of his most recent pamphlet, Offering (Red Squirrel Press, 2015). They also discuss the mythology of memory, Hugh MacDiarmid's influence on Scots language poetry and a walk through the frozen cradle of Scotland. William Bonar was born in Greenock and grew up in the neighbouring shipbuilding town of Port Glasgow. He is a graduate of the universities of Edinburgh and Strathclyde and he gained a distinction on the MLitt in Creative Writing at Glasgow University in 2008. He retired after working in education for 30 years and is a full-time writer. He is a founder member of St Mungo's Mirrorball, Glasgow's network of poets.
Episode 94: This episode talks about the beginnings of the First World War, Serbian conspiracies, the doomed campaign in Gallipoli, and a fate worse than death.Hidden History Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hiddenhistorypodSourcesGallipoli: https://rb.gy/wcjiyuSearching for Gavrilo Princip: https://rb.gy/2lam6jThe Russian Secret Service and King Alexander Obrenović of Serbia (1900-1903): https://rb.gy/8ljzx5Serbia and the Serbs: https://rb.gy/uilegwCrime, Suicide, and the Anti‐Hero: “Waltzing Matilda” in Australia: https://rb.gy/wh5jztScottish Transnational Discourse of the Great War: A Genealogy of Eric Bogle’s “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” and Hugh MacDiarmid’s “At the Cenotaph”: https://rb.gy/4bqdul
Join us for an online TORCH Book at Lunchtime webinar on Commemorative Modernisms: Women Writers, Death and the First World War written by Dr Alice Kelly. Book at Lunchtime is a series of bite-sized book discussions held fortnightly during term-time, with commentators from a range of disciplines. The events are free to attend and open to all. About the book: One of the key questions of modern literature was the problem of what to do with the war dead. Through a series of case studies focusing on nurse narratives, Edith Wharton, Katherine Mansfield, H.D., and Virginia Woolf, as well as visual and material culture, Commemorative Modernisms: Women Writers, Death and the First World War provides the first sustained study of women’s literary representations of death and the culture of war commemoration that underlie British and American literary modernism. Considering previously neglected writing by women in the war zones and at home, as well as the marginalised writings of well-known modernist authors, and drawing on international archival research, this book demonstrates the intertwining of modernist, war, and memorial culture, and broadens the canon of war writing. Author Alice Kelly is currently a Lecturer in American Literature at the University of Sussex, and the Communications Officer here at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on twentieth-century literary and cultural history in Britain and America. As well as Commemorative Modernisms: Women Writers, Death and the First World War (2020), Alice has published a critical edition of Edith Wharton’s First World War reportage, Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort (2015), and essays on modernist and First World War literature. She has held Fellowships at Yale University, New York University, and a British Academy Rising Stars Award for her interdisciplinary seminar series Cultures and Commemorations of War. https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/people/alice-kelly Panel: Michael Whitworth is a Professor of Modern Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford. He has published extensively on Virginia Woolf, with his most recent work being an edition of Virginia Woolf's Night and Day for Cambridge University Press (published 2018). His previous publications include Einstein’s Wake: Relativity, Metaphor, and Modernist Literature, and chapters on Oliver Lodge’s science writing and Hugh MacDiarmid’s poetry. He is currently working a project concerning on science, poetry, and specialization in the early twentieth century, Laura Rattray is Reader in American Literature at the University of Glasgow and Director of its Centre for American Studies. She has teaching and research interests in modern American literature and culture, women’s writing and gender, editing and publishing history. In 2016 she founded the Transatlantic Literary Women series, funded by the British Association for American Studies and US Embassy small grants programme. Publications include Twenty-First-Century Readings of Tender Is the Night (co-editor with William Blazek), The New Edith Wharton Studies (co-editor with Jennifer Haytock) and The Unpublished Writings of Edith Wharton, while her new monograph, Edith Wharton and Genre: Beyond Fiction, is published by Palgrave Macmillan. Jay Winter is the Charles J. Stille Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University. He is a specialist on World War I and its impact on the 20th century. Previously, Winter taught at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Warwick, the University of Cambridge, and Columbia University. In 2001, he joined the faculty of Yale. Winter is the author or co-author of 25 books, including Socialism and the Challenge of War; Ideas and Politics in Britain, 1912-18; Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History; The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century; Rene Cassin and the rights of man, and most recently, War beyond words: Languages of remembrance from the Great War to the present.
Join us for an online TORCH Book at Lunchtime webinar on Commemorative Modernisms: Women Writers, Death and the First World War written by Dr Alice Kelly. Book at Lunchtime is a series of bite-sized book discussions held fortnightly during term-time, with commentators from a range of disciplines. The events are free to attend and open to all. About the book: One of the key questions of modern literature was the problem of what to do with the war dead. Through a series of case studies focusing on nurse narratives, Edith Wharton, Katherine Mansfield, H.D., and Virginia Woolf, as well as visual and material culture, Commemorative Modernisms: Women Writers, Death and the First World War provides the first sustained study of women’s literary representations of death and the culture of war commemoration that underlie British and American literary modernism. Considering previously neglected writing by women in the war zones and at home, as well as the marginalised writings of well-known modernist authors, and drawing on international archival research, this book demonstrates the intertwining of modernist, war, and memorial culture, and broadens the canon of war writing. Author Alice Kelly is currently a Lecturer in American Literature at the University of Sussex, and the Communications Officer here at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on twentieth-century literary and cultural history in Britain and America. As well as Commemorative Modernisms: Women Writers, Death and the First World War (2020), Alice has published a critical edition of Edith Wharton’s First World War reportage, Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort (2015), and essays on modernist and First World War literature. She has held Fellowships at Yale University, New York University, and a British Academy Rising Stars Award for her interdisciplinary seminar series Cultures and Commemorations of War. https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/people/alice-kelly Panel: Michael Whitworth is a Professor of Modern Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford. He has published extensively on Virginia Woolf, with his most recent work being an edition of Virginia Woolf's Night and Day for Cambridge University Press (published 2018). His previous publications include Einstein’s Wake: Relativity, Metaphor, and Modernist Literature, and chapters on Oliver Lodge’s science writing and Hugh MacDiarmid’s poetry. He is currently working a project concerning on science, poetry, and specialization in the early twentieth century, Laura Rattray is Reader in American Literature at the University of Glasgow and Director of its Centre for American Studies. She has teaching and research interests in modern American literature and culture, women’s writing and gender, editing and publishing history. In 2016 she founded the Transatlantic Literary Women series, funded by the British Association for American Studies and US Embassy small grants programme. Publications include Twenty-First-Century Readings of Tender Is the Night (co-editor with William Blazek), The New Edith Wharton Studies (co-editor with Jennifer Haytock) and The Unpublished Writings of Edith Wharton, while her new monograph, Edith Wharton and Genre: Beyond Fiction, is published by Palgrave Macmillan. Jay Winter is the Charles J. Stille Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University. He is a specialist on World War I and its impact on the 20th century. Previously, Winter taught at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Warwick, the University of Cambridge, and Columbia University. In 2001, he joined the faculty of Yale. Winter is the author or co-author of 25 books, including Socialism and the Challenge of War; Ideas and Politics in Britain, 1912-18; Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History; The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century; Rene Cassin and the rights of man, and most recently, War beyond words: Languages of remembrance from the Great War to the present.
Three new poems this week: Scotland by Hugh MacDiarmid, performed by Finn Straife The Shame by Lynne Dougan Ghost Hills by Lorraine Sinclair Our poetry show is on Indylive radio at 1pm and 9pm on Sundays, repeated at 9pm on Fridays
'The Last Lauch' by Douglas Young, 'Loch Leven' by Sydney Goodsir Smith and 'The Little White Rose' by Hugh MacDiarmid read by David Harding. In the early 1970s David Harding cast these poems into paving slabs next to bus stops and telephone kiosks around Glenrothes. Transcripts of the poems can be found at https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/last-lauch/ http://www.modernistmagazines.com/media/pdf/297.pdf https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46800/the-little-white-rose More from David Harding can be found at https://www.davidharding.net
At the cabin, a Mullein has seeded itself in one of my beds and I’m letting it grow. (I was touring gardens in Washington DC a few years ago and the garden had a section for Mulleins. It was so pretty.) On more than one occasion, I have had to rescue it - to make sure that no one in the family pulled it or weed-whacked it. Now, there it stands; 6 feet tall, big leaves, soft as lamb's ears, and the yellow florets are just starting to pop out from the flower spike. If you look closely at Mulleins, they have these little fine hairs on the very soft leaves. The purpose of those little fine hairs is to trap moisture from the air; to help the plant survive - even when there’s no water around. Inside the leaf and the flower of Mullein, is a compound called mucilage. It’s a soothing property - a soothing slime - that protects tissue when it comes into contact with it. Herbalists use that mucilage to treat dry coughs; the mucilage reduces the acidity level in the esophagus which helps stop the cough reflex. Whenever I look at Mullein, I always think of Whitman’s charming thoughts on it. Whitman wrote: "The farmers, I find, think the Mullein a mean unworthy weed. But, I have grown to a fondness for it. Every object has its lesson, enclosing the suggestion of everything else —and lately I sometimes think all is consecrated for me in these hardy, yellow flower'd weeds. As I come down the lane early in the morning, I pause before their soft wool-like fleece and stem and broad leaves, glittering with countless diamonds. Annually for three summers now, they and I have silently returned together; at such long intervals I stand or sit among them, musing [...] of my sane or sick spirit, here as near at peace as it can be." Brevities #OTD On this day in 1745, Prince Charles Stuart plucked a white rose and placed it in his hat. Charles got the nickname "Bonnie Prince Charlie." Some have speculated, that the event sparked the significance of the Burnett rose - a white rose - because it became a celebrated symbol of Scotland. Here’s a little poem about the white rose from Hugh MacDiarmid: 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. #OTD Today in 1830, the first lawn Moore was invented by Edward Beard Budding. Budding had adopted a machine that was used to remove the nap from wool. Budding had been working part time at carpet mill and he got the idea when he was working there; watching that machine with the wool. Budding apparently tested his machine at night, so that his neighbors wouldn’t be curious or make fun of him. And, if you ever get the chance to go and see the Budding Museum of Gardening, it looks like a fun place to go. It shows mowers from all over the world. There’s also a pruning exhibit. The museum is in England. Cute little museum. #OTD Today is the birthday of the botanist Jacob Weidenmann, who was born on this day in 1829 in Zürich Switzerland. Weidenmann was a landscape architect. He came to the United States in 1856. By 1861, he was named the first superintendent of parks for Hartford, Connecticut. When he was there, he designed the Bushnell Park in Cedar Hill cemetery. By the 1870's, he was collaborating with Frederick Law Olmsted. In 1871, Weidenmann published his very first book it was called Beautifying Country Homes.His work on the Cedar Hill Cemetery led him to write a book called Modern Cemeteries - where he actually talked about how to landscape memorial grounds. After Weidenmann had finished designing in Hartford, he was asked to design the capital grounds in Des Moines. When Weidenmann died, he was buried in a quiet corner of the cemetery he had designed in Connecticut. Today, Harvard awards the Weidenmann prize to the student who shows outstanding ability in landscape design. #OTD Today is National Eat a Peach Day. Peaches are native to northwest China. August is one of the months that peaches are harvested. Thomas Jefferson had peaches growing at Monticello. The scientific name for peaches is Persica. The name Persica derives from the belief that peaches were from Persia - but they were actually from China. Unearthed Words “In June we picked the clover, And sea-shells in July: There was no silence at the door, No word from the sky. A hand came out of August And flicked his life away: We had not time to bargain, mope, Moralize, or pray.” ― Cecil Day-Lewis, Overtures to Death and Other Poems Today's book recommendation: Herbal Healing for Women by Rosemary Gladstar This book is a favorite among women and female gardeners looking to utilize herbs for women’s health. Specifically, there are tons of great recipes in here and lots of useful information. The book covers common disorders and the herbs that are effective for treating them. Gladstar shares how to select in-store herbs and then how to pair hundreds of herbal remedies. I think what is especially helpful about this book is Rosemary‘s exclamation of the properties of herbs and then, not only how herbs are healing, but how they promote good health as well. Rosemary is called the godmother of modern herbalism Today's Garden Chore Spruce up the ironwork in your garden. The other day I was at a big box store looking for some pieces for my irrigation system, when I remembered to pick up some cans of white spray paint for my ironwork. I bought it to refresh a set of table and chairs I bought from a friend. It’s amazing how good it all looks with a fresh coat of paint. For other ironwork that I want to keep with a more natural look, I will just get some clear coat and use that. And if you’re doing a lot of spray painting (like I was with the tables and chairs), it makes sense to buy one of those little spray grip accessories that attach to the top of your spray paint cans. They minimize finger fatigue. They are called spray grips or contour grips - and you can find them at your big box hardware stores. They’re usually sold right by the paint cans. They are totally worth the investment. Something Sweet Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart Here’s a an interesting story that was shared in the Montclair Times in 1903. An amateur botanist and his friend were passing by a florist and they spied an elephant ear. The botanist asked his friend, "Did you ever taste elephant ears?" The companion said he never had. The botanist answered this way: "It’s a good thing for you - although it is an experience that will remain in your memory for a long time to come. I remember - oh, it seems like a hundred years back, yet the incident & fresh in my mind and as clear as crystal - when three boys were leaning across a wall looking at the plant in a garden. I was one of the boys - and the other two were telling me what a sweet taste elephant leaves had. [...] One of the boys put a piece in his mouth - at least he pretended to - and I agreed to chew some also. Well, persimmons are as sugar compared to the drawing and bitterness of the elephant leaf. For half an hour after I had put the bit of leaf into my mouth, I drank enough water to float a ship." If you want to eat elephant ears, it's their tuber that's edible. The leaves and the stem are the most toxic parts of the plant. Thanks for listening to the daily gardener, and remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."
Enjoy a great selection of Scottish poems and songs in part 3 of our series! Learn more about the fiery poet, editor, and political activist Hugh MacDiarmid and how he revived interest and awareness in the Scots language and Scottish literature. Hear MacDiarmid read from "The Kind of Poetry I Want" during a visit to New York in 1969 and enjoy a selection of his work. You'll also meet Robert Service, the Bard of the Yukon. Hear about his adventures in the Canadian and American West and why he was hailed as the people's poet. Also, poems by Andrew McDiarmid and Stewart Conn, plus music from Session A9, Emily Smith, Ewan Robertson & Gary Innes, and more!
Poetry had its beginnings as an oral art form. The sung lyric and the chanted narrative were, perhaps, one of the first forms of public entertainment. Gathered around a communal fire or chieftain’s hearth, audiences found their evening’s recreation in listening to a poet’s verse narrative. The Iliad, it has been estimated, would have taken about 24 hours to recite … Read more about this episode...
A profile of the controversional Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid, analysing his poetry along with his political career which saw him expelled from two opposing parties. (Broadcast 1968)
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