What can poetry give us in this sorry mess of Spring 2026? Waiting for Dave (another daft name for a storm) while Donald beats his war chest, I was searching for answers. Here we are, between Donald and Dave, two man-made malevolencies blowing in from the west ‘and there’s naethin ye can dae, said the old boys’ as a canny Kathleen Jamie notes in her poem, Springs, written in … [Read more...] about Four poems in defiance of an uneasy spring
Inside the Wall of Death, a wealth of human kindness
Flashback. Five days before the Iran war, I’m on my way to chair a round table discussion about the gaps in Glasgow’s social narrative, the human stories missing from the city’s self-knowledge. I’m a little apprehensive, aware we might stray into sensitivities expressed during my preparatory conversations. Instead, the event revealed something altogether different. As the … [Read more...] about Inside the Wall of Death, a wealth of human kindness
What are we stumbling into? Reasons for hope and fear again.
This post, inspired by the Stolpersteins ('stumbling stones') of Amsterdam, attracted some surprising (to me) comments when it was first published in April 2019. I am reposting now for two reasons. Fear of 'the other' has grown – in Scotland as elsewhere. But, more hopefully, '"Scotland’s first Stolperstein was unveiled in Edinburgh on the pavement outside the former St … [Read more...] about What are we stumbling into? Reasons for hope and fear again.
