A celebration in Scots, of mature, female twilght years! Seylan baxter (cello), Kyrre Slind (mandolin and lute), Rob MacNeacail (harmonium), Gerda on vocals.

AULD WUMMAN'S SANG

A love song to the seasons and life, accompanied by Kyrre Slind on lute,

REFS

AYE THE GEAN

Til Ungdommen/Tae Youth - words by Norwegian poet Nordahl Grieg, translated into Scots and also sung by Gerda Stevenson. Melody by Otto Mortensen. Til Ungdommen was written in 1936 by Nordahl Grieg for the Norwegian Students’ Society, after a request by a Member of the Norwegian Parliament. The poem is directly inspired by the Spanish civil war, which had broken out the same summer. It was set to music by the Danish composer Otto Mortensen, in 1952, some nine years after Nordahl Grieg's death.

Gerda Stevenson's Album

Tae Youth

A poem in tribute to Elizabeth Melville, Lady Culross, (c.1578–c.1640), Fife; a poet - the earliest known Scottish woman writer to be published in her lifetime, her Calvinist dream-vision poem, Ane Godlie Dreame appeared in 1603. She wrote to her son on his sister’s death that she – i.e, her daughter – was “hevylie trublit in mynd and body. Pryde wes the cheif thing that trublit hir, and the greving of hir deir mother, as she callit me then. Bot efter a soir battell, she gat a happie victorie, blissed be God. Nou she rests in the arms, all tears are wyppit away.”
This poem by Gerda Stevenson, read by the author, is in the voice of Melville's daughter.
From Stevenson's poetry collection, QUINES: Poems in Tribute to Women of Scotland (Luath Press, 1st edition 2018; 2nd edition, 2020). Read by Gerda Stevenson.

"Gerda Stevenson’s fabulous QUINES…a groundbreaker of a book." JACKIE KAY, THE OBSERVER
 
“An inspiring collection, celebrating Scottish women throughout the ages.” SUNDAY HERALD
 
“Gerda Stevenson’s brilliant collection, QUINES.” THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS, BOOKS FROM SCOTLAND

“This is a project of dazzling literary scope and vision.  These poems entertain but they also educate. The collection shines a radiant light into the dark corners of unwritten women’s history. It has been reported that Stevenson would love a copy of Quines to go into every Scottish high school and university.  I can’t think of a more worthy ambition.” DUNDEE UNIVERSITY REVIEW OF THE ARTS.

A Dochter's Dreame

A poem by Gerda Stevenson (read by the author), in tribute to Maggie Dickson, a salt-seller from Musselburgh, 1702–1765; hanged for the alleged murder of her illegitimate child; she strongly
denied the charge.
From Gerda Stevenson's poetry collection QUINES: Poems in Tribute to Women of Scotland (Luath Press, 1st edition 2018, 2nd edition 2020).

"Gerda Stevenson’s fabulous QUINES…a groundbreaker of a book." JACKIE KAY, THE OBSERVER
 
“An inspiring collection, celebrating Scottish women throughout the ages.” SUNDAY HERALD
 
“Gerda Stevenson’s brilliant collection, QUINES.” THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS, BOOKS FROM SCOTLAND

“This is a project of dazzling literary scope and vision.  These poems entertain but they also educate. The collection shines a radiant light into the dark corners of unwritten women’s history. It has been reported that Stevenson would love a copy of Quines to go into every Scottish high school and university.  I can’t think of a more worthy ambition.” DUNDEE UNIVERSITY REVIEW OF THE ARTS.

Hauf Hingit Maggie

This poem by Gerda Stevenson (read by the author) is in tribute to the artist Joan Eardley, born Warnham, 1921, died Killearn, 1963. Her extraordinary output was created in just fifteen years before she died of cancer; celebrated for her portraits of street children in Glasgow, and for her landscapes and seascapes of the North-East coast of Scotland.
From Gerda Stevenson's poetry collection QUINES: Poems in Tribute to Women of Scotland (Luath Press, 1st edition 2018, 2nd edition 2020).

"Gerda Stevenson’s fabulous QUINES…a groundbreaker of a book." JACKIE KAY, THE OBSERVER
 
“An inspiring collection, celebrating Scottish women throughout the ages.” SUNDAY HERALD
 
“Gerda Stevenson’s brilliant collection, QUINES.” THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS, BOOKS FROM SCOTLAND

“This is a project of dazzling literary scope and vision.  These poems entertain but they also educate. The collection shines a radiant light into the dark corners of unwritten women’s history. It has been reported that Stevenson would love a copy of Quines to go into every Scottish high school and university.  I can’t think of a more worthy ambition.” DUNDEE UNIVERSITY REVIEW OF THE ARTS.

At Miss Eardley's

This poem is by Gerda Stevenson (read by the author) from her poetry collection IF THIS WERE REAL (Smokestack Books, 2013). It first appeared in a community drama, PENTLANDS AT WAR, written and produced by the Pentlands Writers' Group, 2005.

Reviews of IF THIS WERE REAL:
 “The best of the new in contemporary Scottish poetry - not to be missed.”  Ron Butlin, Sunday Herald.

“…compassionate, defiant and honest. The inherent fallibilities and sad frailties of humankind and nature are explored with an edgy panache. Stevenson finds, and recreates, a magnificent joy. These cool or impassioned, always clear-eyed, poems comfort and disturb, sadden and enlighten; they at once ground and elevate the reader. Though Gerda Stevenson is very much a poet with her own style, If This Were Real put me in mind of Iain Crichton Smith's A Life, both books being autobiographical collections written by remarkable Scots who have had lives rich in moments of eloquence, insight and empathy.” Kevin MacNeil, Association of Scottish Literary Studies magazine, The Bottle Imp, 2014: http://asls.arts.gla.ac.uk/SWE/TBI/TBIIssue16/MacNeil.html 

“Brings a fresh eye and a wise head to familiar Scottish themes.” Tribune Magazine.

“In ‘Co-Op Funeral Parlour’, with which I’m still light-headed, the speaker contemplates her own child, as the infant lies in a coffin. The poem’s vertiginous emotional charge is achieved by the unflinching control of the language in the face of intimate, inscrutable devastation – as if daring itself to find the image, and let that image do its dark work. The best poems here fuse figurative and emotional life to haunting effect.”  Wordpress, 2014.

Wartime Skipping Rhyme

First published on the website WRITE WHERE WE ARE NOW, curated by Carol Ann Duffy, 2020.
https://www.mmu.ac.uk/write/

Carol Ann Duffy and the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University have brought together poets from around the world to write new poems during the Coronavirus crisis. Our poets were invited to write directly about the pandemic or about the personal situation they found themselves in during lockdown.

The collection features poems written from the earliest stages of the pandemic up until 30th June 2020. The poems are presented in date order and each includes a note about where it was written. They will remain online as a permanent creative, historical and sociological record of these extraordinary and challenging times.
Readers are welcome and encouraged to share any of the poems from the collection, or their own creative responses, using #WWWAN on social media. Manchester Poetry Library will be collecting and archiving these public poems.

Lockdown

A poem by Gerda Stevenson, first published on the website WRITE WHERE WE ARE NOW, curated by Carol Ann Duffy, 2020.
www.mmu.ac.uk/write/

Carol Ann Duffy and the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University have brought together poets from around the world to write new poems during the Coronavirus crisis. Our poets were invited to write directly about the pandemic or about the personal situation they found themselves in during lockdown.

The collection features poems written from the earliest stages of the pandemic up until 30th June 2020. The poems are presented in date order and each includes a note about where it was written. They will remain online as a permanent creative, historical and sociological record of these extraordinary and challenging times.
Readers are welcome and encouraged to share any of the poems from the collection, or their own creative responses, using #WWWAN on social media. Manchester Poetry Library will be collecting and archiving these public poems.

Hands

This poem is by Gerda Stevenson (read by the author) from her poetry collection IF THIS WERE REAL (Smokestack Books, 2013).

Reviews of IF THIS WERE REAL:
“The best of the new in contemporary Scottish poetry - not to be missed.” Ron Butlin, Sunday Herald.

“…compassionate, defiant and honest. The inherent fallibilities and sad frailties of humankind and nature are explored with an edgy panache. Stevenson finds, and recreates, a magnificent joy. These cool or impassioned, always clear-eyed, poems comfort and disturb, sadden and enlighten; they at once ground and elevate the reader. Though Gerda Stevenson is very much a poet with her own style, If This Were Real put me in mind of Iain Crichton Smith's A Life, both books being autobiographical collections written by remarkable Scots who have had lives rich in moments of eloquence, insight and empathy.” Kevin MacNeil, Association of Scottish Literary Studies magazine, The Bottle Imp, 2014: asls.arts.gla.ac.uk/SWE/TBI/TBIIssu…16/MacNeil.html

“Brings a fresh eye and a wise head to familiar Scottish themes.” Tribune Magazine.

“In ‘Co-Op Funeral Parlour’, with which I’m still light-headed, the speaker contemplates her own child, as the infant lies in a coffin. The poem’s vertiginous emotional charge is achieved by the unflinching control of the language in the face of intimate, inscrutable devastation – as if daring itself to find the image, and let that image do its dark work. The best poems here fuse figurative and emotional life to haunting effect.” Wordpress, 2014.

Homework for Evacuee Day

This poem, by Gerda Stevenson (read by the author), is from the book INSIDE & OUT: the Art of Christian Small (Scotland Street Press, 2019). Gerda wrote the biographical introduction to the book about this extraordinary, little known, Scottish artist, as well as 13 new poems to accompany some of the full colour plates of Christian's paintings.
http://christiansmall.co.uk

Conference of Pears

A poem by Gerda Stevenson (read by the author) in tribute to Nancy Riach, born Motherwell, 1927, described as the finest swimmer in the British Empire, died 1947, Monte Carlo.  

From Gerda Stevenson's poetry collection QUINES: Poems in Tribute to Women of Scotland (Luath Press, 1st edition 2018, 2nd edition 2020).

"Gerda Stevenson’s fabulous QUINES…a groundbreaker of a book." JACKIE KAY, THE OBSERVER

“An inspiring collection, celebrating Scottish women throughout the ages.” SUNDAY HERALD

“Gerda Stevenson’s brilliant collection, QUINES.” THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS, BOOKS FROM SCOTLAND

“This is a project of dazzling literary scope and vision. These poems entertain but they also educate. The collection shines a radiant light into the dark corners of unwritten women’s history. It has been reported that Stevenson would love a copy of Quines to go into every Scottish high school and university. I can’t think of a more worthy ambition.” DUNDEE UNIVERSITY REVIEW OF THE ARTS.

The River Kens Nancy Riach

EDEN

This poem by Gerda Stevenson (and read by the author) is a tribute to Helen Macfarlane, born Barrhead, near Glasgow, 1818, died
Nantwich, 1860; Chartist revolutionary, admired by Karl Marx as
a political commentator and essayist, she was the first translator
into English of The Communist Manifesto, published in The Red
Republican magazine, under the nom de plume of Howard Morton,
her identity as translator not revealed till 1958.
The poem is from Gerda Stevenosn's poetry collection QUINES: Poems in Tribute to Women of Scotland (Luath Press, 1st edition 2018, 2nd edition 2020).

"Gerda Stevenson’s fabulous QUINES…a groundbreaker of a book." JACKIE KAY, THE OBSERVER

“An inspiring collection, celebrating Scottish women throughout the ages.” SUNDAY HERALD

“Gerda Stevenson’s brilliant collection, QUINES.” THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS, BOOKS FROM SCOTLAND

“This is a project of dazzling literary scope and vision. These poems entertain but they also educate. The collection shines a radiant light into the dark corners of unwritten women’s history. It has been reported that Stevenson would love a copy of Quines to go into every Scottish high school and university. I can’t think of a more worthy ambition.” DUNDEE UNIVERSITY REVIEW OF THE ARTS.

Seeing Red

Gerda Stevenson is an actor/writer/director/singer/songwriter, based in Scotland.

Gerda Stevenson

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