Shane looks to the skies for Burns Night

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Shane looks to the skies for Burns Night

A poem by University of Aberdeen lecturer in creative writing, Shane Strachan, has been selected as part of a project to celebrate the night skies on Burns Night.

On 25 January 2025, there will be a rare celestial alignment of the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in the same section of the sky. Alignments like these are relatively rare and bring an aura of mystery and fascination. Some ancient cultures associated such alignments with pivotal changes or as portents of great significance.

To mark the alignment new poems mostly in Scots, together with a work in Gaelic by the new Scots Makar, Peter MacKay, have been commissioned by the Scottish Poetry Library.

Among those selected for Burns Night Skies is Pleiades by Shane Strachan, inspired by the Pleiades constellation – the "Seven Sisters" often used by sailors to navigate

He said: “As former Scots Scriever at the National Library of Scotland, I was invited to contribute a recording of an existing or new poem for the Scottish Poetry Library's Burn Night Skies collection.

“I decided to translate one of my English poems into Scots and extend it. I think the new poem feels a lot more rich and alive to hear, which is often the case with poetry in Scots, like the work of Burns.

“In the poem the Pleiades constellation is compared with floating dandelion seeds, sailing off to new destinations.”

Other poets selected include the former Makar Kathleen Jamie, and Aberdeen's own Sheena Blackhall, who is an Honorary Teaching Fellow at the University.'

Dr Strachan’s inclusion in the Burns Night Skies project follows his success in December when he was named as one of the winners of the James McCash Competition for poetry in the Scots language for his work The Last Ride.

Kevin Williamson, Communications Manager at the Scottish Poetry Library, said: “Hearing the distinct and expressive auld Scots tongue wax lyrical at the cutting edge of astronomical and scientific discovery is a wonder and a joy. These poems lift our gaze skyward and our imagination to the heavens while celebrating this rare planetary alignment.

“Whether it is Kathleen Jamie serenading Sirius “the dug stern”, Peter MacKay’s thoughts on the dwarf planet Pluto or Stephen Watt taking a look at Miranda, a moon of Uranus, there is so much to explore.

“And let us not forget that the birth of Robert Burns in January 1759 coincided with a rare astronomical appearance of Halley’s Comet in the sky.”

The full galaxy of poems can be found here.

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