Recent Posts
The Truth About Lies
Return To Blog Listing
Scottish author Jim Murdoch discusses writing, his own and other authors, and muses at length about his fascination with the perversity of language. Veering from the nostalgic to the acerbic his blog will amuse anyone with a love of language.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'scottish poetry'
Responsorial poetry
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. - Frank Zappa Before we start this post properly I'd like you to read a poem and decide what you think about it. It's a wee experiment. T-JUNCTION This is the way to ...
Say what you have to say and get off the page
My father died about thirteen years ago. January 1996. He had a heart attack, his second. It was all very sudden and all over very quickly. When I was about thirteen he had his first heart attack and that was the day he started to grow old. He'd b...
This post is bluey-green and tastes minty fresh
I've just had a couple of poems accepted by Ink, Sweat and Tears. If you'd be so kind as to click on this link and have a wee read at them I would be most grateful. I'll wait. Good. Now, let me tell you something about them: Truth's L...
It all boils down to brown sauce
We'll never see eye-to-eye until Glasgow chip shops start serving brown sauce! Gogs, Edinburgh I've spoken before about the relationship between Scotland's first and second cities, that would be Edinburgh and Glasgow for those outwi...
Best Scottish poems 2008
About this time last year I did a wee post highlighting the best Scottish poems of 2007, that is, the poems that Poetry Online has deemed the best poems. I thought I would do the same this year. This year, in their introduction, the edito...
Bloody Foreigners
I have said this before – and I will no doubt say it again – but I think it's amazing how any one person manages to communicate with another. We encounter the problem all the time online. The world may be shrinking but it is still a very...
Naked souls
I have two poems in the autumn edition of The Linnet's Wings, an International Art and Literary ezine originating from Drumod, Co Leitrim in the Irish Republic. I think this is the first time I've been published in Eire. They've separated the two po...
Drowning men and dead poems
Rejection is hard to take. Let's face it, no one likes to be rejected. But there's something worse. And that's the look on your kid's face when they've been rejected, they've not got the part in the school play or they've not been picked as class mon...
An interview with Claire Askew (part two)
In my last post I had the pleasure of introducing you to one of the bright new poets-on-the-block, Edinburgh-based Claire Askew. If you've not read the first part of my interview you can see it here. In this second part I wanted to know more about wh...
An interview with Claire Askew (part one)
A few days ago I told you about a new website I've discovered called One Night Stanzas which is the brainchild of a flame-haired, young lady called Claire Askew. As I said before, but it's worth mentioning again, this is a site devoted to encouraging...
Why am I a poet?
A while ago Rachel Fox mentioned a new Scottish website that I should check out. Always keen to support my fellow countrymen and women I immediately clicked on the link. One Night Stanzas is a site committed to supporting up and coming poets. This ex...
1001 poems
Click on image to enlargeI've never been one for anniversaries, for looking back, peering over the top of the pink-tinted glasses, sighing in an affected manner and wishing I'd done things even a little differently. Perhaps that's come about because ...
Is there anybody out there?
I have nothing to say and I'm saying it. – John CageI've been fortunate to have another couple of poems accepted for publication in Apple Valley Review. The poems are 'Petrified Poem' and 'Communication Gap'. It's a good choice by the editor since ...
Our cockatiel loves Woody Allen
Heil, Poirot!The nice people at Caffeine Destiny have included two of my poems in the Fall edition of their magazine. I submitted them yonks ago and I'd half-forgotten that I'd even sent them. The poems are 'Sometimes' and 'Scrap Values' both very re...
Andrew Philip: A Sampler
A woman who lives longer than her husband is called a widow, a man without his wife a widower. A child without parents is an orphan. But what do you call the father and mother of a child who has died? – P F ThoméseI've finally got myself a decent ...
More about the song
I don't own many books of contemporary poetry. It is a rare book that catches my eye and generally after flicking though a couple of pages I know if it's going to be my cup of tea. Once when I was in a pokey wee used book store in Edinburgh I chanced...
Holy day of obligation
Being a man of a certain age I am not ashamed to say that I have loved a great many women in my life; a few of them even loved me back. And every single time it has been different. 'I love you' is such an easy thing to say, but a hard thing to commun...
Once upon a time in the west of Scotland
Today is January 25th, the anniversary of Robert Burns birth. In Scotland and throughout the world many people will be sitting down to eat a Burns Supper. And I suppose you expect me to say something about it. Okay, I've never been to a Burns Supper ...
This blog might offend some people
I'm pleased to start off the New Year with the publication of two poems in Eclectica.The two poems, 'The Answer' and 'The Other Side of the Poem II' date back to 2004. At the time I was feeling particularly negative about the capacity of poetry to co...
Best Scottish Poems of 2007
Poetry Online's entries for the Best Scottish Poems of 2007 are now up and you should have a wee shuftie as we say here. What I particularly like about the entries is that they contain comments from the poets and the editors, some quite lengthy.If yo...
