Poetry, also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, a prosaic ostensible meaning. A poem is a literary composition, written by a poet, using this principle.
Fife is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire. By custom it is widely held to have been one of the major Pictish kingdoms, known as Fib, and is still commonly known as the Kingdom of Fife within Scotland. A person from Fife is known as a Fifer. In older documents the county was very occasionally known by the anglicisation Fifeshire.
Robert Henryson was a poet who flourished in Scotland in the period c. 1460–1500. Counted among the Scots makars, he lived in the royal burgh of Dunfermline and is a distinctive voice in the Northern Renaissance at a time when the culture was on a cusp between medieval and renaissance sensibilities. Little is known of his life, but evidence suggests that he was a teacher who had training in law and the humanities, that he had a connection with Dunfermline Abbey and that he may also have been associated for a period with Glasgow University. His poetry was composed in Middle Scots at a time when this was the state language. His writing consists mainly of narrative works. His surviving body of work amounts to almost 5000 lines.
Norman Alexander MacCaig DLitt was a Scottish poet and teacher. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity.
Michael Scot was a mathematician and scholar in the Middle Ages. Born in Scotland or northern England, he was educated at Oxford and Paris, and worked in Bologna and Toledo, where he learned Arabic. His patron was Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire and Scot served as science adviser and court astrologer to him. Scot translated Averroes and was the greatest public intellectual of his day.
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.
This article presents lists of historical events related to the writing of poetry during 2004. The historical context of events related to the writing of poetry in 2004 are addressed in articles such as History of Poetry Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Joe Corrie was a Scottish miner, poet and playwright best known for his radical, working class plays.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Tom Hubbard was the first librarian of the Scottish Poetry Library and is the author, editor or co-editor of over thirty academic and literary works.
Sheena Blackhall is a Scottish poet, novelist, short story writer, illustrator, traditional story teller and singer. Author of over 170 poetry pamphlets, 15 short story collections, 4 novels and 2 televised plays for children, The Nicht Bus and The Broken Hert. Along with Les Wheeler, she co-edits the Doric resource Elphinstone Kist, and has worked on the Aberdeen Reading Bus, as a storyteller and writer, also sitting on the editorial board for their children's publications in Doric, promoting Scots culture and language in the North East. In 2018 Aberdeen University awarded her the degree of Master of the University. In 2021 she was appointed SPL’s poetry ambassador for the Scots language.
Brian Holton is the translator of Chinese "Misty" poet Yang Lian. He translates into English and Scots, and is the only currently-publishing Chinese-Scots translator in the world.
Kinnesswood, possibly from the Scottish Gaelic: Ceann eas ciad is a village in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, and is in the historic county of Kinross-shire. It lies to the east of Loch Leven, on the A911 road, below Bishop Hill in the Lomond Hills. It is approximately 4 miles west of Glenrothes and 4 miles east of Kinross.
On His Heid-Ake, also referred to as The Headache and My Heid Did Yak Yesternicht, is a brief poem in Scots by William Dunbar composed at an unknown date.
David Rorie, DSO, MDCM, DPH was a doctor, folklorist and poet writing in his native language, Scots. As a poet he is known chiefly for his authorship of the well-known song, 'The Lum Hat wantin' the Croon', and a volume of collected poems which appeared under that title in 1935.
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.
North End Park, also known as Colliers Den, is a disused playing field in Cowdenbeath. Between 1888 and 1917 the site was a football ground and the home venue of Cowdenbeath F.C. It was later the home ground of Fife amateur club Hearts of Beath and was also used as a greyhound racing stadium from the 1930s until the 1970s, before the site was sold for development.
"Christis Kirk on the Green" is an anonymous Middle Scots poem in 22 stanzas, now believed to have been written around the year 1500, giving a comic account of a brawl at a country fair. It was for many years mistakenly attributed either to James I of Scotland or to James V of Scotland. It gave rise to a whole tradition of humorous poems on similar subjects by Scottish poets down the centuries, including Allan Ramsay and Robert Burns, and is still one of the most frequently published works in Middle Scots. "Christis Kirk on the Green" has been called one of the finest performances in 15th-century British poetry.
Len Pennie is a Scottish poet and Scots language and mental health advocate. She became known on social media in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland for her "Scots word of the day" and poem (poyum) videos. Her Twitter and Tiktok accounts currently have over 400,000 followers worldwide.
The Boy in the Train is a poem written in Scots, by Mary Campbell (Edgar) Smith (1869-1960), first published in 1913. It is featured in many anthologies of Scottish verse, texts related to railway history, and is routinely quoted when discussing linoleum, and the history of the Scottish town Kirkcaldy. It is a popular poem in Scottish culture, often being a children’s party piece, and "recited by generations of primary school children". The crime-writer Val McDermid, who was born in Kirkcaldy, has said "As school kids we all had to learn The Boy in the Train".
