Scott Lyall
@scottlyall
"Not this. Not at all. I desire to press in my arms the loveliness which has not yet come into the world."
Out today: to mark this year's centenary of Hugh MacDiarmid's 'A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle', AYONT THE THISTLE, edited by Jim Mackintosh, Alan Riach and James Robertson. 'Jean', my short story in Scots, is amongst the contributions. @asls.org.uk @iassl.bsky.social @modernistudies.bsky.social
I wonder if David Lindsay was aware of af Klint's work. Some of it might have illustrated A Voyage to Arcturus
Stranger Things vibes at the Hilma af Klint exhibition at the Grand Palais
10.23pm, early June, Edinburgh. It's such a beautiful, ridiculous time of year in Scotland. I never want to sleep.
Delighted to have a chapter on Alasdair Gray and Hugh MacDiarmid in the hot-off-the-press The Edinburgh Companion to Alasdair Gray and the Arts, published by @edinburghup.bsky.social
Newhaven scenes. I often feel there's something indescribably otherworldly about north Edinburgh, Newhaven in particular. Maybe it's the light.
The February sun goes down on the Union Canal, Edinburgh. The light is returning...
James Leslie Mitchell was born today in 1901. If you've not been, get yourself to the Lewis Grassic Gibbon Centre in Arbuthnott. It's a small community-run museum and café where you can view some fab Gibbon paraphernalia, have a gander at some books, and get a lovely homemade lunch.
Five years of editing SCOTTISH LITERARY REVIEW with the fab @rhonabrown.bsky.social and more exciting issues to come in 2026. The latest bumper issue is out now. Get yours by joining @asls.org.uk here: share.google/P8K28t8SNfWU...
Some new works at the Moderns. This is Encuentro (Encounter) by Remedios Varo.
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.