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This article incorporates text from the article Laurence_I._Graham on Shetlopedia, which was licensed under the GNU Free Documentation Licence until September 14, 2007.
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Laurence I. "Lollie" Graham (1924–2008) was an author and poet from Scotland.
Born in Stromfirth, Shetland, in 1924. The Graham family moved to one of the new croft holdings at Veensgarth, Tingwall and Graham lived there until he died. He had been a part-time crofter most of his life, and active in local politics.
After World War II, Graham studied at the University of Edinburgh and Moray House College, Edinburgh, during which time he was active in literary circles and co-edited a volume of Scottish student verse. He returned to Shetland to take up a teaching post and taught at the Anderson Educational Institute and the Scalloway Junior High School. He was also headmaster at Urafirth Primary School and latterly the long-term and much loved headmaster of Gott Primary School. He contributed biographical sketches to the important textbook The Shetland Book (1967), edited by Andrew T. Cluness.
Graham provided an introduction and a commentary to Shetland Poetry - a recital in 1950, arranged by himself, his brother John J. Graham, and T. A. Robertson (Vagaland), with assistance from A. T. Cluness in selecting the poems. The text included a translation into Danish by Martin Melsted of an article by William J. Tait on Shetland language and literature.
He was Joint Editor of The New Shetlander from 1956 till 1988 along with his brother, the novelist John J. Graham. He was editor of Shetland Crofters (1986), co-editor with Brian Smith of MacDiarmid in Shetland, a fine collection of essays on Hugh MacDiarmid published to coincide with the centenary of the birth of this eminent Whalsay resident in 1992, Hjaltland (1993), and A Shetland Anthology (1998).
In 2000, the Shetland Library published his selected poems in Love's Laebrack Sang , a volume which demonstrates Graham as both a committed political poet, engaged in making response to the public events of the day via satire, and a Shetland poet with a deep love of his community and its history.
Lollie Graham's oldest daughter is the artist Ruth Graham.
This article incorporates text from the article Laurence_I._Graham on Shetlopedia, which was licensed under the GNU Free Documentation Licence until September 14, 2007.
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Christopher Murray Grieve, best known by his pen name Hugh MacDiarmid, was a Scottish poet, journalist, essayist and political figure. He is considered one of the principal forces behind the Scottish Renaissance and has had a lasting impact on Scottish culture and politics. He was a founding member of the National Party of Scotland in 1928 but left in 1933 due to his Marxist–Leninist views. He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain the following year only to be expelled in 1938 for his nationalist sympathies. He would subsequently stand as a parliamentary candidate for both the Scottish National Party (1945) and Communist Party of Great Britain (1964).
The Scottish Renaissance was a mainly literary movement of the early to mid-20th century that can be seen as the Scottish version of modernism. It is sometimes referred to as the Scottish literary renaissance, although its influence went beyond literature into music, visual arts, and politics. The writers and artists of the Scottish Renaissance displayed a profound interest in both modern philosophy and technology, as well as incorporating folk influences, and a strong concern for the fate of Scotland's declining languages.
Sydney Goodsir Smith was a New Zealand-born Scottish poet, artist, dramatist and novelist. He wrote poetry in literary Scots, sometimes referred to as Lallans, and was a major figure of the Scottish Renaissance.
Carmina Gadelica is a compendium of prayers, hymns, charms, incantations, blessings, literary-folkloric poems and songs, proverbs, lexical items, historical anecdotes, natural history observations, and miscellaneous lore gathered in the Gàidhealtachd regions of Scotland between 1860 and 1909. The material was recorded, translated, and reworked by the exciseman and folklorist Alexander Carmichael (1832–1912).
William Soutar was a Scottish poet and diarist who wrote in English and in Braid Scots. He is known best for his epigrams.
Alan Norman Bold (1943–1998) was a Scottish poet, biographer, journalist and saxophonist. He was born in Edinburgh.
Sir Alexander Gray was a Scottish civil servant, economist, academic, translator, writer and poet.
Professor Duncan Munro Glen was a Scottish poet, literary editor and Emeritus Professor of Visual Communication at Nottingham Trent University. He became known with his first full-length book, Hugh MacDiarmid and the Scottish Renaissance. His many verse collections included from Kythings and other poems (1969), In Appearances (1971), Realities Poems (1980), Selected Poems 1965–1990 (1991), Selected New Poems 1987–1996 (1998) and Collected Poems 1965–2005 (2006). His Autobiography of a Poet appeared with Ramsay Head Press in 1986. He edited Akros magazine for 51 numbers from August 1965 to October 1983. His work to promote Scottish poets and artists included Hugh MacDiarmid and Ian Hamilton Finlay, among others. Some of his poetry was translated into Italian.
Jakob Jakobsen was a Faroese linguist and scholar. The first Faroe Islander to earn a doctoral degree, his thesis on the Norn language of Shetland was a major contribution to its historical preservation.
Vagaland, was a poet from Shetland.
The New Shetlander is Scotland's longest-running literary magazine, founded in 1947, and edited originally by Peter Jamieson. Its title and to some extent its content were modeled on the socialist journal The Shetlander, published in the early twenties.Following financial difficulties, since 1956 it has been published by the Shetland Council of Social Service and its successor Voluntary Action Shetland. It has had a central role in Shetland's Literature since it was founded. For the greater part of its existence thus far, 1956 till 1998, the New Shetlander benefited from the editorial care of the brothers John J. Graham and Laurence I. Graham. In 1998 Alex Cluness and John Hunter took on the task of following that sterling team. In 2002 the historian Brian Smith and the author Laureen Johnson became editors.
Shetland literature is literature written in Shetland, Scotland, or by writers from Shetland. The literature is often written in Shetland dialect or its parent language, Norn, and often depicts the history and folklore of Shetland. Common themes include reflections on island life and proximity to the sea, it is fishing and crofting traditions, the weather and seasons as determined by Shetland's climate, Shetland's unique landscape, its flora and fauna, and the influence of the people's Viking heritage. Folklore often displays features seen similarly in Scandinavia and some Celtic traditions.
James John (J.J.) Haldane Burgess was a Shetland historian, poet, novelist, violinist, linguist and socialist, a noted figure in Shetland's cultural history. His published works include Rasmie's Büddie, Some Shetland Folk, Tang, The Treasure of Don Andreas, Rasmie's Kit, Rasmie's Smaa Murr, and The Viking Path, the latter being translated into German. He was one of the Shetlanders who gave assistance to Jakob Jakobsen, in his researches into the Norn language in Shetland.
James King Annand MBE was a Scottish poet best known for his children's poems.
Alexander Scott (1920–1989) was a Scottish poet, playwright and scholar born in Aberdeen. He wrote poetry in both Scots and Scottish English as well as plays, literary reviews and critical studies of literature. As a writer, scholar, dramatist, broadcaster, critic and editor, he showed a life-long commitment to Scottish literary culture. He was latterly a tutor and reader of Scottish literature at the University of Glasgow, where he was instrumental in establishing Scotland's first Department of Scottish Literature in the academic year 1971–72.
Marion Emily Angus (1865–1946) was a Scottish poet who wrote in the Scots vernacular or Braid Scots, defined by some as a dialect of English and others as a closely related language. Her prose writings are mainly in standard English. She is seen as a forerunner of a Scottish Renaissance in inter-war poetry – her verse marks a departure from the Lallans tradition of Robert Burns towards that of Hugh MacDiarmid, Violet Jacob and others.
Poetry of Scotland includes all forms of verse written in Brythonic, Latin, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, French, English and Esperanto and any language in which poetry has been written within the boundaries of modern Scotland, or by Scottish people.
Stella Sutherland was one of the Shetland writers of the later 20th and early 21st century. Best known for poetry in both English and Shetland dialect, she also contributed articles and short stories to local magazines, especially The New Shetlander.
Scots-language literature is literature, including poetry, prose and drama, written in the Scots language in its many forms and derivatives. Middle Scots became the dominant language of Scotland in the late Middle Ages. The first surviving major text in Scots literature is John Barbour's Brus (1375). Some ballads may date back to the thirteenth century, but were not recorded until the eighteenth century. In the early fifteenth century Scots historical works included Andrew of Wyntoun's verse Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland and Blind Harry's The Wallace. Much Middle Scots literature was produced by makars, poets with links to the royal court, which included James I, who wrote the extended poem The Kingis Quair. Writers such as William Dunbar, Robert Henryson, Walter Kennedy and Gavin Douglas have been seen as creating a golden age in Scottish poetry. In the late fifteenth century, Scots prose also began to develop as a genre. The first complete surviving work is John Ireland's The Meroure of Wyssdome (1490). There were also prose translations of French books of chivalry that survive from the 1450s. The landmark work in the reign of James IV was Gavin Douglas's version of Virgil's Aeneid.
Robert Crombie Saunders was a poet, editor, journalist and teacher, and a significant figure in the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th century. His poetry is in both English and Scots, and he identified with the 'Lallans' movement, which sought to revive Scots as a serious literary medium.
