When you were people
We could have loved you,
Found out your names
And brought you presents…
—“Poem for Innocent Victims of War” by AC Jacobs (1937–1994) – born #OTD, 30 May
Published in NAMELESS COUNTRY: Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2018)
A 🎂 🧵
1/6
https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784106751/nameless-country/
#Scottish #literature #poetry #Jewish #diaspora #20thcentury #warpoetry
The houses stir and pluck their roofs and walls
Apart as if in play and fling their stones
Against the sky to make a common arc
And fall again. The conflagrations raise
Their mountainous precipices…
—Edwin Muir, “The River”
5/10
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thCentury #EdwinMuir #Orkney #warpoetry #ww2
It is VE Night, Tobermory.
Cottages blaze and shimmer in the mirror of the bay.
Light is necklaced everywhere…
—Hugh McMillan, “Old Photograph”
published in AFTER THE STORM (Smith/Doorstop Books, 2005)
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/old-photograph/
Cantie in seaside simmer on the dunes,
I fling awa my dowp of cigarette
whaur bairns hae biggit castles out of sand
and watch the reik rise frae the parapet…
—Robert Garioch Sutherland (1909–1987), “During a Music Festival”
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoetry #WW2 #VEDay #Scots #Scotslanguage
Thàinig uair-san leis na sligean,
leis na spealgan-iarainn beàrnach,
anns an toit is anns an lasair,
ann an crith is maoim na h-àraich…
—Somhairle MacGill-Eain (Sorley MacLean) (1911–1996), “Curaidhean” (“Heroes”)
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/
#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #WarPoetry #WW2 #VEDay
Now the soldier has come home.
He has fought his way back
To the faces of the gnome-children
With still magic in their glances…
—James Findlay Hendry (1912–1986), “The Return”
Today, 8 May, is the 81st anniversary of VE Day
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/
Chì mi rè geàrd na h-oidhche
dreòs air chrith ’na fhroidhneas thall air fàire,
a’ clapail le a sgiathaibh,
a’ sgapadh ’s a’ ciaradh rionnagan na h-àird’ ud…
—Deòrsa Mac Iain Deòrsa (George Campbell Hay), “Bisearta”. Hay witnessed the Allied bombing of Bizerte in 1943
#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #warpoetry #ww2
Assoc for Scottish Literature
Art of FACELESS
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