Ready for Burns Night?

Kathy was in conversation with Rigby Graham around Christmas 2005 when he suggested to her that we should produce a broadsheet for Burns Night. Taking a hint from the book we had just produced, we took a linocut from it. Paired with this squib from Burns and a random offcut of paper from the cover we had used for Paper Snowstorm, this is how it ended up. Still as pertinent as it ever has been.

Although broadsheets like this are an interesting fancy for using up offcuts of paper, we do try to concentrate on books, and over the years have produced five. They are an interesting bunch: Westlin Wind is almost a miniature book, while To a Mouse is quite the opposite, and virtually a type specimen of proprietary typefaces designed by the Canadian Jim Rimmer. Both of those books are a single text, the first an early song and the latter probably his best known poem.

Last year we printed Brose, an essay in three parts that includes a couple of Burns, an extempore poem and a song, that being as a foldout broadsheet, and a couple of simple recipes to try yourself. The last that is still available, the chapbook Garland of Love Songs by Robert Burns, is in short supply, there are three copies left as I write this. I would like to print an extended edition for next year, adding to the contents considerably.

The last book that Kathy was able to physically work on, as well as editorial input she did much of the collating and sewing, was Two Songs, Lassie with the Lint-white Locks and The Golden Locks of Anna. Most of the copies went as a posthumous gift to her friends, as she wanted. I would like to include both songs within a new edition of the Garland, and also this years broadsheet, The Silver Tassie, which you see here. In the meantime if you would like a copy of this as a broadsheet, it will be slipped as a gift into any order received between now and Burns Night. Tassie is another of those Scottish words that sometimes appear, but you might still drink your espresso from a demitasse, tasse being the French word for a cup. Burns’ silver tassie is clearly somewhat larger, a tankard perhaps, to hold a pint of wine. This coming Burns Night I shall stick to a glass of Scotch Ale to go with my vegetarian version, neeps and tatties, followed with some clootie dumpling washed down with a single malt. As has been dictated by custom since that 2006 squib, though this year again without company.