The Light Blue Book

Winner of the Donald Meek Award 2016 and the Saltire Society Research Book Award 2017.

About the Book: 

There are love songs, poems about sexual encounters, poems giving advice to men or women about choosing partners, poems praising various parts of the male and female body, songs of longing, frustration, death, consummation and parting. There are poems that warn of the dangers of sex – others celebrate overcoming such warnings…

Gaelic poetry is viewed through strange, distorting lenses as religious respectability meets other-worldly Celticism. The Gael can often appear all soul, and no body. But there is another Gaelic poetry, a long and healthy tradition of ‘blue’ love poetry that stretches back over five hundred years. Blue or light-blue, as a nineteenth-century pamphlet of bawdy Gaelic songs entitled An Leabhar Liath, The Light-Blue Book, suggests. This dual-language anthology, like its nineteenth-century namesake, offers a new glimpse into the complex, rich world of Gaelic love poetry. It features celebrated poets such as Alexander MacDonald and Sorley MacLean, alongside lesser-known poets, and includes poems that have never before been published or translated. After reading this book, you won’t think of the body of Gaelic verse in quite the same way ever again.

About the Author:

’S ann à Leòdhas a tha Pàdraig MacAoidh bho thùs ach tha e air fuireach ann an diofair àitichean rè a bheatha. Fhuair e an MA aige bho Oilthigh Ghlaschu agus thug e a-mach ollamhachd aig Colaiste na Trianaide Baile Àtha Cliath. Tha e air obrachadh do dh’Ionad Bàrdachd Sheumais Heaney, Oilthigh na Banrighinn Beul Feirste, Colaiste na Trianaide Baile Àtha Cliath, Colaiste Oilthigh Baile Àtha Cliath agus Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, far an robh e na sgrìobhaiche air mhuinntearas. Bha e ag obair cuideachd mar neach-naidheachd airson a’ BhBC, agus tha e air sgrìobhadh do dhiofar phrògraman aithriseach airson telebhisean agus rèidio, a’ nochdadh ann an cuid dhiubh. 

Tha Pàdraig air iomadh phàipear agus leabhar fhoillseachadh mu nua-bhàrdachd, gu h-àraidh mu bhàrdachd na h-Alba agus na h-Èireann. Bha an ollamhachd aige stèidhichte air buaidh Uilleim Wordsworth air Seumas Heaney. San latha an-diugh, bidh e a’ teagasg ann an roinn na Beurla aig Oilthigh Chill Rìmhinn.

Originally from the Isle of Lewis, Peter Mackay has an MA from Glasgow University and a PhD from Trinity College, Dublin. He has worked at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen’s University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin and Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, where he was writer in residence. He has also worked as a Broadcast Journalist and television news producer for the BBC, and written or appeared in various documentaries on radio and television.

Peter has published widely on contemporary poetry, particularly Irish and Scottish poetry. His PhD was on the influence of William Wordsworth on Seamus Heaney. He teaches in the School of English at the University of St Andrews.

Rugadh Iain S. Mac a’ Phearsain ann an Edmonton, Canada ann an 1965. Ach tha dlùth cheanglaichean aig a theaghlach ris a’ Ghàidhealtachd. ’S ann à Ìle a bha taobh àthar bho thùs agus thàinig taobh a mhàthair à Muile agus as an Eilean Sgitheanach mus do rinn iad eilthireachd gu Eilean a’ Phrionnsa. Bho aois gu math òg, bha Mac a’ Phearsain air a chuairteachadh le diofar chànain. Chluinneadh e Frangais agus Ucràineach ann an sgìre a bhreith agus Gàidhlig nuair a bha e a’ cèilidh air teaghlach a’ mhàthair ann an Eilean a’ Phrionnsa. Thàinig Mac a’ Phearsain gu Alba ann an 1996 agus bha e ag obair na òraidiche fad 10 bliadhna aig Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. Tha e an-dràsta a’ teagasg aig Oilthigh a’ Chòigeamh Uladh (Ulster University). Tha e cuideachd air a bhith ag obair don BhBC, ag aithris air an Ear-mheadhan agus saoghal nan Arabach.

Tha a’ bhàrdachd aige air nochdadh ann an New Writing Scotland, ann an cruinneachaidhean leithid Wish I Was Here, agus Struileag: Shore to Shore. Bho chionn ghoirid, co-dheasaich e An leabhar liath / The light blue book: 500 years of Gaelic love and transgressive verse a tha ri fhaighinn bho Luath Press.

Iain S. MacPherson was born in Edmonton, Canada in 1965. His family however, has strong connections to the Scottish Highlands. His father’s side was originally from Islay and his mother’s family originated in Mull and the Isle of Skye, before emigrating to Prince Edward Island. MacPherson was exposed several different languages from an early age - French and Ukrainian in his hometown and Gaelic when visiting his mother’s family in PEI. MacPherson came to Scotland in 1996 and lectured for ten years at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig; he is now a lecturer in Irish and Celtic Studies at Ulster University. He has worked for BBC Radio Gaelic, commenting on the Middle East and the Arab world.

His poetry has appeared in New Writing Scotland, in anthologies such as Wish I Was Here, and in Struileag: shore to shore. He recently co-edited An leabhar liath / The light blue book: 500 years of Gaelic love and transgressive verse.