#glen uig

[the-final-sentence]

Believe you and I sing tiny and wise and could if we had to eat stone and go on.

Richard Hugo, from “Glen Uig”

[thestuntbum]

The Fairy Glen.. by Gordie Broon. on Flickr.

[goingattractions]

Publishers Weekly

Today I was feeling colorless. Then I saw this review appear  in Publisher's Weekly. It says:

"Foley's road-weary debut derives beauty from exhaustion and manages to counter, through the poems' sparseness and crispness, the kind of poetry whose raison d'être is the exhaustion of beauty."

Road weary is right. And I am exhausted. 

But this attention's given me cause for pride where i wouldn't have expected any today. It's good to be heard. Thank you reviewer. I'm going to go buy a beer and read a book about somebody else's life. 

[kicking-up-leaves]

Joan Eardley, Catterline, Smirisary, "The Illusionist" animation...

Joan Eardley lived and worked in Glasgow, creating her famous paintings of tenement children, but she also had a cliff top cottage in the east coast village of Catterline. Her seascapes were painted in all weathers down by the fishermen's nets on the shoreline. Another settlement I had read about and visited over the years is Smirisary on the West Coast near Glen Uig. The first time I explored this part of the West Highlands there was a celebration in Glen Uig - the village was finally connected to the National Grid (electricity). The local priest officiated and a piper played the tune called "You've been a long time a coming"! Sylvain Chomet's animation "The Illusionist" which is partly based in Edinburgh and the Highlands of the 1950s, is beautifully illustrated. The island village which the 'Illusionist' visits is also celebrating the coming of 'the electricity'! When I produce illustrations based on my childhood in 1950s Edinburgh, I try to create a similar feel to this animation, which is very close to my own memories of that time.

[kitheartfelt]

Believe in this couple this day who come to picnic in the Faery Glen. They pay rain no matter, or wind. They spread their picnic under a gale-stunted rowan. Believe they grew tired of giants and heroes and know they believe in wise tiny creatures who live under the rocks. Believe these odd mounds, the geologic joke played by those wise tiny creatures far from the world’s pitiful demands: make money, stay sane. Believe the couple, by now soaked to the skin, sing their day as if dry, as if sheltered inside Castle Ewen. Be glad Castle Ewen’s only a rock that looks like a castle. Be glad for no real king. These wise tiny creatures, you’d better believe, have lived through it all: the Viking occupation, clan torturing clan, the Clearances, the World War II bomber gone down, a fiery boom on Beinn Edra. They saw it from here. They heard the sobs of last century’s crofters trail off below where every day the Conon sets out determined for Uig. They remember the Viking who wandered off course, under the hazelnut tree hating aloud all he’d done. Some days dance in the bracken. Some days go out wide and warm on bad roads to collect the dispossessed and offer them homes. Some days celebrate addicts sweet in their dreams and hope to share with them a personal spectrum. The loch here’s only a pond, the monster is in it small as a wren. Believe the couple who have finished their picnic and make wet love in the grass, the tiny wise creatures cheering them on. Believe in milestones, the day you left home forever and the cold open way a world wouldn’t let you come in. Believe you and I are that couple. Believe you and I sing tiny and wise and could if we had to eat stone and go on.

"Glen Uig" by Richard Hugo

[mfelps]

Believe in this couple this day who come to picnic in the Faery Glen. They pay rain no matter, or wind. They spread their picnic under a gale-stunted rowan. Believe they grew tired of giants and heroes and know they believe in wise tiny creatures who live under the rocks. Believe these odd mounds, the geologic joke played by those wise tiny creatures far from the world's pitiful demands: make money, stay sane. Believe the couple, by now soaked to the skin, sing their day as if dry, as if sheltered inside Castle Ewen. Be glad Castle Ewen's only a rock that looks like a castle. Be glad for no real king. These wise tiny creatures, you'd better believe, have lived through it all: the Viking occupation, clan torturing clan, the Clearances, the World War II bomber gone down, a fiery boom on Beinn Edra. They saw it from here. They heard the sobs of last century's crofters trail off below where every day the Conon sets out determined for Uig. They remember the Viking who wandered off course, under the hazelnut tree hating aloud all he'd done. Some days dance in the bracken. Some days go out wide and warm on bad roads to collect the dispossessed and offer them homes. Some days celebrate addicts sweet in their dreams and hope to share with them a personal spectrum. The loch here's only a pond, the monster is in it small as a wren. Believe the couple who have finished their picnic and make wet love in the grass, the tiny wise creatures cheering them on. Believe in milestones, the day you left home forever and the cold open way a world wouldn't let you come in. Believe you and I are that couple. Believe you and I sing tiny and wise and could if we had to eat stone and go on. -- Richard Hugo, Glen Uig

[guinvr]

Panorama of Glen Uig, with castle Ewen on the right