Books

Dastram/Delirium: Selected Versions of Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair - Poetry Translation Full-Length - May 2023 - Broken Sleep Books Taylor Strickland - Dastram/Delirium | Broken Sleep Books

***WINNER: THE SCOTTISH POETRY BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2023***

***POETRY BOOK SOCIETY SUMMER 2023 TRANSLATION CHOICE***

Commonplace Book - Debut poetry collection - published by Broken Sleep Books Taylor Strickland - Commonplace Book | Broken Sleep Books

Selected Publications

(Poetry and Translations)

Northern Studies Institute - forthcoming April 2024

Tapsalteerie Habbie Anthology - January 2024https://www.tapsalteerie.co.uk/product/sleekit/

Causeway/Cabhsair - Volume 13, Issue 1, October 2023https://www.abdn.ac.uk/aup/individual-issues-64.php

Glasgow Review of Books - October 2023https://glasgowreviewofbooks.com/2023/10/01/three-poems-by-taylor-strickland/

Poetry Wales - September 2023https://poetrywales.co.uk/taylor-strickland-how-i-wrote-coille-challtainn/

Poetry Northwest (US) - June 2023

Anne-thology: Poems Re-Presenting Anne Shakespeare, BSB - April 2023

Gutter - Autumn 2023

New Statesman - 28 September 2022 The NS Poem: Leelanau - New Statesman

New Boots and Pantisocracies - September 2022 DePfeffelschrift PAGE EIGHTEEN : Taylor Strickland | new boots and pantisocracies (wordpress.com)

Times Literary Supplement - 1 October, 2021 Prayer | Original poem by Taylor Strickland | The TLS (the-tls.co.uk)

Poetry Scotland - Issue 102, Autumn 2021

Poetry Review - Volume 111.3, Autumn 2021 Vol 111, No 3, Autumn 2021 – The Poetry Society

George Mackay Brown Fellowship: Words Into Music, 2021 https://georgemackaybrownfellowship.com/taylor-strickland-the-low-road-4/

New Writing Scotland 39 - August 2021

december magazine - Volume 32.1, Spring 2021

acumen - January 2021

Gutter - Autumn 2020

The Lincoln Review - Issue 1 Poem by Taylor Strickland (lincolnreview.org)

magma - Issue 75

The Dark Horse - Autumn/Winter 2019

Orbis - Summer 2019

The Interpreter’s House - Issue 75 Taylor Strickland 71 — The Interpreter's House

The London Magazine - February/March 2019

Northwords Now - Issue 33

Selected Awards

Saltire Society Scottish Poetry Book Of The Year Award 2023 - Dastram/Delirium

Poetry Book Society Summer 2023 Translation Choice - Dastram/Delirium

Rialto Nature and Place Competition - Longlisted

University of Glasgow College of Arts Research Support Award

University of Glasgow ‘Seedcorn’ Funding

Orbis Readers’ Award, for ‘After My Father’

Sample Work

Alba, Or Scotland, No Black Coffee Will Help

 

my whiteboy misery at three am:

stubbornly trying to turn a sonnet

into visa-speak, that sass of Home

Office. What is ‘exceptional talent’?

Calvin Harris-bass drops? Rihanna-rhyme?

The flashlight & fast life of Kanye West?

It’s three am,

                        Alba.

                                   Too late to sing

of how pointed borders are pointless

in love. They cleave, sever all thistle

& laughter & you are Lady Gaga’s

chart-topping mezzo-mania.

If I were Bradley Cooper’s sixstring,

or Cash Warren’s westcoast smile,

maybe I’d marry my Jessica Alba.

-The Dark Horse, Autumn/Winter 2019, Issue 41

Fingal’s Address To Oscar

for Darrel Strickland

 

Grandson, you are prince to first heroes.

I saw the glint of your sword,

and the gratitude it composed

in me: your coda of war.

But remember each ancestor’s

great footsteps, and walk within them.

When they lived—Trenmor

and Trathull, both fathers-at-arms—

every battle had a champion,

and they were champions at battle.

Their names crescendo from now on

in poetry’s old ensemble.

So go, Oscar, quash any conqueror.

But raise up all others mercifully.

Winter’s torrent, spring’s meltwater.

Be either force against our enemies.

Be also soft breeze, summer zephyr.

To all in need, you are wanted relief.

Like Trathull or Trenmor, even me,

to this, you have lent a hand

with warm welcome. Grandson,

here, take heart and home

beneath the starlight of my sword.

 

after ‘Ossian’

*This is a version of the poem just below, not a line-by-line translation. As a result, liberties have been taken.

Briathran Fhinn Ri Oscar

A mhic mo mhic’s e thubhairt an rìgh,

Oscair, a righ nan òg fhlath,

Chunnaic mi dealradh do lainne’s b’e m’uaill

‘Bhi ‘g amharc do bhuaidh ‘s a chath.

Lean gu dlù ri cliù do shinnsireachd

‘S na dìbir a bhi mar iadsan.

‘N uair bu bheò Treunmhor nan rath,

‘Us Trathull athair nan treun laoch,

Chuir iad gach cath le buaidh,

‘Us bhuannaich iad cliù gach teugbhail.

‘Us mairidh an iomradh ‘s an dàn

Air chuimhn’ aig na baird an déigh so.

O ! Oscair, claoidh thus’ an treun-armach,

‘S thoir tearmunn do’n lag-lamhach, fheumach;

Bi mar bhuinne-shruth reothairt geamhraidh

Thoirt gleachd do naimhdibh na feinn,

Ach mar fhann-ghaoth sheimh, thlàth, shamhraidh,

Bi dhoibhsan a shireas do chabhar.

Mar sin bha Treunmhor nam buadh,

S bha Trathull nan ruag ‘n a dheigh ann,

S bha Fionn ‘na thaic do ‘n fhann

G a dhion o ainneart luchd-eucoir.

‘N a aobhar shìnin mo lamh,

Le failte rachainn ‘n a choinnimh,

‘Us gheibheadh e fasgath ‘us caird,

Fo sgàil dhrithlinneach mo loinne.

-The London Magazine, February/March 2019

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