Tarn MacArthur
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tarnnation.bsky.social
Tarn MacArthur
@tarnnation.bsky.social
530 followers 290 following 540 posts
Poems forthcoming in: London Review of Books, Free Bloody Birds & The London Magazine.
Poems appearing in: Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman, New Republic, Poetry Review & Poetry London.
https://linktr.ee/tarnmacarthur
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tarnnation.bsky.social
Tarn MacArthur @tarnnation.bsky.social · Feb 25
My poem ‘Climbing to Seefin Passage Tomb on Summer Solstice’, which is an homage to my late mentor John Burnside, has just been published in the Times Literary Supplement. Please have a read. www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/o...
'Climbing to Seefin Passage Tomb on Summer Solstice' by Tarn MacArthur
i.m. John Burnside No one knows what calls us, days like this that seem to stretch all sense of reason: the hillside scrub abuzz with silver-washed and dark green fritillary, the red grouse and hare, ...
www.the-tls.co.uk
tarnnation.bsky.social
Absolutely butchered this.
January 23, 2026 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Tarn MacArthur
irishlittimes.bsky.social
Remembering Michael Longley, who sadly passed away a year ago today.
January 22, 2026 at 8:30 PM
tarnnation.bsky.social
Andy Goode again, honestly what has Scotland done to deserve this?
January 18, 2026 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Tarn MacArthur
kathleenjamie.bsky.social
Good to see the Observer featuring new poetry. Today it's my 'Mineral'.
January 18, 2026 at 8:53 AM
tarnnation.bsky.social
Great teasers from the new journal Free Bloody Birds’ forthcoming second issue, w/ a poem by Muldoon and essay on MacNeice from @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk maestro John Clegg.

www.freebloodybirds.com/issue-two/
Issue Two — Free Bloody Birds
www.freebloodybirds.com
January 12, 2026 at 8:57 PM
Reposted by Tarn MacArthur
bylines.scot
Scotland and Wales deserve local BBC radio | Letter
Letters: England’s various stations serve the community, writes Stuart Walker, so why can’t the UK’s other nations have similar?
www.theguardian.com
January 10, 2026 at 3:11 PM
tarnnation.bsky.social
Good afternoon from Skye.
January 8, 2026 at 3:37 PM
tarnnation.bsky.social
Mick Imlah on the great Gordon Brown.
January 5, 2026 at 7:45 PM
Reposted by Tarn MacArthur
andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social
My debut book of poems is out this year in March, or thereabouts, from @DiodeBlue. Here's a sample.
January 2, 2026 at 8:36 PM
tarnnation.bsky.social
Tomorrow marks 12 years since my father’s sudden death. A lot of my work has been influenced by that loss, but this poem perhaps addresses the daily feeling of it most directly.

Happy New Year!
December 31, 2025 at 10:07 PM
Reposted by Tarn MacArthur
asls.org.uk
A spill of yew
like Christ’s blood
in the snow;
and somewhere in the hedge,
just yards away,
a fleck of presence
waiting to be born…

—John Burnside, “Nativity”
published in RUIN, BLOSSOM (Penguin, 2024)
#poem #poetry #Christmas
www.penguin.co.uk/books/456120...
Nativity by John Burnside A spill of yew like Christ's blood in the snow; and somewhere in the hedge, just yards away, a fleck of presence waiting to be born. No angel at the gate. No guiding star. We make this world from gravity and light and we alone, God's grace by other means: a flock of redwings flitting through the fog, woodrush and fescue, wintergreen, Rose of Sharon.
December 24, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Tarn MacArthur
asls.org.uk
According to J. Carmichael Watson, the #Gaelic poet Màiri nighean Alasdair Ruaidh (Mary MacLeod, c.1615–c.1707), was buried face-down at her own request:

“She directed that she should be placed face downward in the grave – ‘beul nam breug a chur foidhpe’” (with her lying mouth down)
#WyrdWednesday
Meadowsweet Kathleen Jamie Published in Jizzen (Picador, 1999) Tradition suggests that certain of the Gaelic women poets were buried face down. So they buried her, and turned home, a drab psalm hanging about them like haar, not knowing the liquid trickling from her lips would seek its way down, and that caught in her slowly unravelling plait of grey hair were summer seeds: meadowsweet, bastard balm, tokens of honesty, already beginning their crawl toward light, so showing her, when the time came, how to dig herself out – to surface and greet them, mouth young, and full again of dirt, and spit, and poetry.
December 17, 2025 at 1:10 PM
tarnnation.bsky.social
All the organisation and decision making of last week seems to have disappeared quite quickly here. The the first 20 last week were quite poor as well, but trying to turn momentum away from home without some of your top players going to be a lot tougher.
December 14, 2025 at 1:21 PM
tarnnation.bsky.social
Warriors, what a win!
December 13, 2025 at 9:46 PM
tarnnation.bsky.social
Can’t believe they’re flogging AI with “omg it taught me how to cook this amazing dish”… you mean like a recipe, like one of the oldest recorded forms of writing in human history?
December 8, 2025 at 6:21 PM
tarnnation.bsky.social
This is one of the best performances I’ve seen from an Edinburgh ten in years.
December 7, 2025 at 7:04 PM
tarnnation.bsky.social
Name a more iconic combo than Scottish backs and not passing on a 2 on 1.
December 7, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by Tarn MacArthur
revrachelmann.bsky.social
And I say again … how will they enforce this?!? Do trans women have two heads? Will there be people there to ‘denounce’ anyone who - subjectively - ‘looks a bit too much like a ‘fella’’?!? The sheer crassness of it …
December 6, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Reposted by Tarn MacArthur
zacklabe.com
Was there any coverage of the recent record warmth in both the Arctic and Antarctic? Multiple global datasets now confirm these records, and I think it's really quite striking.

Here's some very quick plots showing NOAAGlobalTempv6 data from October too. And see my earlier posts.
A line graph shows the time series of Arctic mean surface temperature anomalies for each October from 1850 through 2025. There is a long-term increasing trend and large year-to-year variability. The mean surface temperature anomaly in October 2025 was 3.78°C for this region. Anomalies are computed relative to a 1910-2000 climate baseline. All data is from NOAA/NESDIS/NCEI NOAAGlobalTemp v6.0.0 on this graphic. A line graph shows the time series of Antarctic mean surface temperature anomalies for each October from 1850 through 2025. There is a long-term increasing trend and large year-to-year variability. The mean surface temperature anomaly in October 2025 was 1.43°C for this region. Anomalies are computed relative to a 1910-2000 climate baseline. All data is from NOAA/NESDIS/NCEI NOAAGlobalTemp v6.0.0 on this graphic.
November 22, 2025 at 2:20 AM
Reposted by Tarn MacArthur
jujuliagrace.bsky.social
This is exactly what I said would happen when I analysed the NHS 10 year plan. Clever words are hiding the reality-people are agitating to pull as many services out of hospitals as possible. Why? Because it’s a lot easier to privatise services that way🚨
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
November 25, 2025 at 7:12 AM
tarnnation.bsky.social
Oooommmmmfffffgggggggg!!!

#ScoDen
November 18, 2025 at 9:48 PM
Reposted by Tarn MacArthur
asls.org.uk
Smoke in the woods
like someone walking in a silent film
beside the tracks…

—John Burnside, “Signal Stop, Near Horsley”
published in SELECTED POEMS (Cape, 2006)
#poem #poetry
www.penguin.co.uk/books/389400...
Signal Stop, Near Horsley John Burnside Smoke in the woods like someone walking in a silent film beside the tracks. A shape I recognise – not smoke, or not just smoke, and not just snow on hazels or fox-trails from the platform to the trees, but winter, neither friend nor stranger, like the girl I sometimes glimpse at daybreak near the crossing, in a dress of sleet and berries, gazing at the train.
November 18, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Reposted by Tarn MacArthur
andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social
I don't do this so much these days but a poem for a Sunday. Leaves by Derek Mahon, from this beautiful book.
November 16, 2025 at 9:42 PM
tarnnation.bsky.social
Toonie needs to go. Blame Finn as the easy way out but no team meltdowns like that if they’re coached well.
#scoarg
November 16, 2025 at 5:04 PM
tarnnation.bsky.social
You can’t have this much lack of mobility at the back and expect to win against such a fluid counter attack. Defense is all over the shop. #GRESCO
November 15, 2025 at 9:09 PM