scott lyall

For those of you in Scotland, come along to the launch of Race and the Scottish Enlightenment at @iashedinburgh.bsky.social! Bruce and I will be introducing the book, and we’re thrilled to be joined by the formidable Colin Kidd, Thomas Ahnert, Matthew D Eddy, Rosi Carr and Ian Stewart. Programme⬇️

Ocean Terminal from Granton Harbour

Granton breakwater

Indian summer in Edinburgh

Anyway, today is World Migratory Bird Day, so I invite you to spend a minute contemplating those extraordinary journeys, perhaps by looking at the European Migration Atlas. migrationatlas.org

The painting 'Pourquoi? II' by John Bellany.

Looking at John Bellany's work in the NLS today. This is 'Pourquoi? II', which Bellany painted after visiting the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1967 - a life-changing moment for the artist. Resurrection?

'Our Lady of the Hills.' (1921) The word anathemata, as David Jones unpicks it in his introduction to what later became an epic poem, means a lifting up and a setting apart of something for our particular savouring. A precise reading of what art is and always should be.

The painting 'Pourquoi? II' by John Bellany.

Looking at John Bellany's work in the NLS today. This is 'Pourquoi? II', which Bellany painted after visiting the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1967 - a life-changing moment for the artist. Resurrection?

In non-Bella news I'm doing a talk at the Edinburgh Futures Institute 'Patrick Geddes and the Anarchist Strain of Town Planning' is on 30 October. It's free and open to all - but book your tickets here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/patrick-ge...

One of the poem's great passages.

Poetry under fire: what poems did during the First World War 5.30pm, Tuesday 11 November 2025 Craiglockhart Campus, Edinburgh Napier University What did the First World War do to poetry? What did poetry do during the First World War? In this lecture, Dr Julia Ribeiro Thomaz will explore a brand new corpus of war poets to interrogate not what is a good or bad war poem nor what war poems say about the war, but rather the social and cultural functions accomplished by poetry in 1914-1918: inventing itself, creating social links, anchoring the war in relation to a poetic past and multiple imagined futures, mediating the experience of war, and producing knowledge about the conflict. She will explore how the expansion of our definition of war poetry allows us to ask new questions about the First World War, as well as future possibilities to continue broadening our understanding of what war poetry was and, above all, what it did and continues doing for those writing and reading it. Dr Julia Ribeiro Thomaz is a postdoctoral researcher at Université de Lille. She completed her doctorate, on French poetry of the First World War, at Université Paris Nanterre. Julia has already published widely in academic journals, and is a Fellow of the International Society for First World War Studies. This lecture continues the annual series of Remembrance lectures at Edinburgh Napier University, marking the historical significance of Craiglockhart as a War Hospital during the First World War, famously the meeting place of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. We also remember our late colleague Catherine Walker, who was for many years curator of the War Poets Collection. Funding comes from the Centre for Arts, Media and Culture and the Centre for Military Research, Education & Public Engagement.

This year the event is also the Dennis Showalter Memorial Lecture, selected by the International Society for First World War Studies. Named after Dennis Showalter, the leading historian of Germany during the war and a longtime friend and supporter of the Society it is delivered each year by a leading early career researcher in First World War Studies. The event is held in the Rivers Suite at Edinburgh Napier University’s Craiglockhart Campus (Google map | travel info). There will be a wine reception from 5.30pm; the lecture will start around 6pm. The event will also be streamed online via Zoom. If you have any queries about the event, please contact Dr Andrew Frayn (a.frayn@napier.ac.uk). This event is both in person and online. If you wish to attend online, please buy an 'online Ticket'. Zoom information will be found in the email confirmations.

We are delighted to share the details for this year's Dennis Showalter Memorial Lecture 'Poetry under fire: what poems did during the First World War' to be delivered by @juliarsct.bsky.social on 11th Nov 2025

You can book to attend in person or online:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/remembranc... 🗃️

The post in postmodernism?

Reading MacDiarmid's A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle again. It was published 100 years ago next year. Kenneth Buthlay's annotated edition from 1987, published by @asls.org.uk, remains the best guide. The poem itself is as thrilling, ambitious and flawed as ever it was.

Tony Harrison's 'Study' Don Paterson on the best room

Don Paterson (@dharmabam.bsky.social) on Tony Harrison is some of the best lit crit and socio-cultural observation and part-memoir and many other things besides, that I have read in quite some time. It's also a wonderful tribute to Harrison and his poetry.

open.substack.com/pub/northsea...

Concrete Scottish Connections: Finlay, Jandl, Gomringer, and Satie Experience an evening of concrete poetry, sound, and music

Concrete Scottish Connections: Finlay, Jandl, Gomringer, & Satie
22 Oct, Edinburgh – free

Ian Hamilton Finlay, Ernst Jandl, & Eugen Gomringer – all born in 1925 – helped shape concrete poetry, breaking linguistic barriers & reimagining the power of words
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/concrete-s...

Tony Harrison's 'Study' Don Paterson on the best room

Don Paterson (@dharmabam.bsky.social) on Tony Harrison is some of the best lit crit and socio-cultural observation and part-memoir and many other things besides, that I have read in quite some time. It's also a wonderful tribute to Harrison and his poetry.

open.substack.com/pub/northsea...

Those crows flew through from Edinburgh especially to do this 😆

Sisson's book isn't error-free, so worth checking elsewhere.

Bulfin joined the IRB in 1913, according to Sisson.

Éamonn Bulfin was a boarder at St Enda's according to Sisson and played Daire in a performance of Pearse's play The Master. Sisson says Bulfin and Desmond Ryan (and early Pearse hagiographer) organised the St Enda's boys into a local Fianna Éireann club.

Illustrations all from Elaine Sisson's book Pearse's Patriots: St Enda's and the Cult of Boyhood.

Here's one with sun and shield.

Or could be the Fianna badge with sun illustration?

I wonder if the dish is simply a shield?

Excited to beam into Scotland next week!!!

The talk will take place on MS Teams. If you'd like to join, please email me on my university account for a link. (You can find my email address by clicking on the link in my bio.)

📢 On 8 October, starting 3.30pm (UK time), @kristingrogan.bsky.social will talk about her research to @edinburghnapier.bsky.social's Centre for Arts, Media and Culture. Kristin's talk focuses on Gertrude Stein and is drawn from her new book, Stitch, Unstitch: Modernist Poetry and the World of Work.

A backlit St Boniface, while the clouds are drawn in the blue.

The old kirk this evening, Papay, island of the Papar.

Apparently Bellany painted these words from Hugh MacDiarmid's A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle on the bedroom ceiling of his London flat in 1965:

To be yersel's — and to mak' that worth bein',
Nae harder job to mortals has been gi'en.

Excellent John Bellany exhibition at the City Art Centre - runs until 28 September