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Click to read Burn's To a Mouse on the SPL Website

On Saturday the 24th, I’ll be with the Scottish Poetry Library for a little while at the Edinburgh Farmers’ Market. Always a great place to hang out on a sharp, winter morning.

Here’s the little blurb the Edinburgh Evening News gave us:

“PIPERS and poets will be attending the Edinburgh Farmers’ Market tomorrow to help celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns. The market will be filled with the sound of the bagpipes, courtesy of two pipers from George Watson’s School. The Scottish Poetry Library will have a stall with free postcards featuring enduring Burns poems such as A Man’s a Man and a range of books on display for visitors to browse. Edinburgh’s reader in residence, Ryan Van Winkle, will also be on hand, helping visitors to find poems they may enjoy. Slow Food Edinburgh will play its part in the festivities, with a Slow Food Taste Tour focusing on haggis, neeps and tatties. Richard Darke, events manager for market organisers Essential Edinburgh, said: “We are looking forward to an atmospheric Farmers’ Market on Saturday with music, poetry and some fantastic home-grown produce.”

And since we’re celebrating ol’ Mr. Haggis-Lover  — I suggest you go and read my favorite Burns’ poem:  “To a Mouse On Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough.” Our friend Ishbel McFarlane wrote about the poem for the Scottish Poetry Library saying: “This poem is wildly self-obsessed and much darker than its popularity in the classroom would suggest. Its proposed subject-matter might be cutesie, but its message ends up being almost as bitter and hopeless as any Burns ever expresses.” Go and read the poem and the rest of Ishbel’s commentary here.