Fishing for Poetry: A Celebration of Norman MacCaig

Aly Bain, Billy Connolly & Andrew Greig seek the Loch of the Green Corrie – with MacCaig’s poetry read by Douglas Dunn, Alasdair Gray, Seamus Heaney, Jackie Kay, Tom Leonard, Liz Lochhead & Aonghas MacNeacail
12/12
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilGV...

Norman MacCaig introduces and reads two poems, c1990. The first, “Tourist & Landlord” (1988), is previously unpublished. The second, “Two Men at Once” (1989), is in THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009) – via @byleaveswelive.bsky.social
#poem #poetry
11/12
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi-G...

He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.
And another, and another.
He couldn’t stop…

—Norman MacCaig, “Small boy”
from THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)
#poem #poetry
10/12
birlinn.co.uk/product/the-...

At the Place for Pulling up Boats
(one word in Gaelic) the tide is full.
It seeps over the grass, stealthy as a robber.
Which it is…

—Norman MacCaig, “Two Thieves”
from THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)
#poem #poetry
9/12
birlinn.co.uk/product/the-...

Everywhere she dies. Everywhere I go she dies.
No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain
but has her death in it.

—Norman MacCaig, “Memorial”
from THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)
#poem #poetry
8/12
birlinn.co.uk/product/the-...

I look across the table and think
(fiery with love)
Ask me, go on, ask me
to do something impossible…

—Norman MacCaig, “Incident”
from THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)
#poem #poetry
7/12
birlinn.co.uk/product/the-...

From the corner of Scotland I know so well
I see Edinburgh sprawling like seven cats
on its seven hills beside the Firth of Forth…

—Norman MacCaig, “Assynt & Edinburgh”
in BETWEEN MOUNTAIN & SEA: Poems From Assynt (Birlinn, 2018)
#poem #poetry
6/12
birlinn.co.uk/product/betw...

The Poetry of Norman MacCaig

Prof Alan Riach from the @uofglasgow.bsky.social discusses MacCaig’s work at our 2013 Schools Conference
#poetry
5/12
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lyn...

Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast.
I could not answer her –
I could not understand her…

—Norman MacCaig, “Aunt Julia”
from THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)
#poem #poetry
4/10
birlinn.co.uk/product/the-...

Norman MacCaig: A Man in My Position

In this film from 1977, the poet Norman MacCaig talks about his work to Magnus Magnusson & John MacInnes.
Available online via the @natlibscot.bsky.social Moving Image Archive
2/12
movingimage.nls.uk/film/2802

When Stevenson invited Barrie to visit him on Upolu in Samoa, he gave these directions: “You take the boat at San Francisco, and then my place is second to the left” – possibly inspiring Peter Pan’s directions for Neverland, “Second to the right, and straight on till morning”

You can also listen to these stories being read online, by three of Scotland’s leading contemporary writers:

“Thrawn Janet”, read by Alan Bissett
“The Tale of Tod Lapraik”, read by James Robertson
“The Bottle Imp”, read by Louise Welsh

#RLSDay #gothic #horror 💙📚
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rylw...

Ruth Richardson in THE LANCET, on how “The Body-Snatcher” shows Robert Louis Stevenson’s

“acute analysis of degrees of guilt; the complicit socialisation of maleness… the dark silences that can exist in social relations that pass as bonhomie”
#RLSDay #C19
4/4
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

“Markheim sees himself in a way the nineteenth century often failed to: the story exposes the awkward truths of trading stolen goods, murdering innocent people, and, as the antique-dealer’s death implies, being selective with connections to the past”
#RLSDay #C19
3/4
www.varsity.co.uk/arts/17647

“The watershed for the modern short story began in 1878 with … Stevenson’s ‘A Lodging for the Night’, with Allen going so far as to claim that the change to the specifically modern short story can be precisely dated at that point”
#RLSDay #C19
2/4
may-on-the-short-story.blogspot.com/2015/05/shor...