So-o, awa’ aways back on Monday, I shared an idea from the great Ray Bradbury about reading a poem, a short story, and an essay every night for “the next thousand nights.”

Why not 1001, I ponder — it is, after all, traditional. However, one thousand it is. 😀

And I’m off to a flying start, because recent visitors from Scotland came bearing the following gifts:

Ten poems from Scotland

Selected and introduced by Don Paterson

This is a chapbook featuring ten poems penned by Scottish poets, and published by Candlestick Press. Taking a peep within, I’m pretty sure I can manage a poem a night…

Blether 

Blether is an anthology of short fictions on the theme of that great Scottish word, “blether.” It was produced by the Scottish Book Trust for Book Week Scotland. Being micro fiction, or short short stories, many are of comparable length to a poem. So again, I think I could add a wee blether to the reading of a poem*, every night.

Tales From The Ruins

Tales From The Ruins, subtitled A Post-Apocalyptic Anthology, comprises fourteen short stories of “…a world in ruins” that are also “intimate and moving accounts” of what might be if the worst, in terms of environmental catastrophe, pandemics, or cataclysmic war, should occur.

Best of all, one of those short stories was penned by one of my visitors: Help, Scotland by Malcolm Timperley. The stories are varied in size, but I could probably manage most in an evening.

All this, of course, assumes one’s evenings have space for poetry and short stories, as well as a spot o’ blether — but if not, it may be time to make some. Especially since they are very short. 🙂

~*~

*Maybe not Paradise Lost or The Rime of the Ancient Mariner tho'--those are epic fantasy-length 
verses. :D