Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • Poetry
    • Poets
    • Poems
    • Burns Night
    • Scotland’s Makar
    • Podcasts
    • Best Scottish Poems
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • Nat 5 and Higher poems
    • Dyslexia-friendly lesson plans
    • Poems in Scots for schools
    • Rannan Chloinne / Children’s Verses
    • Nua-Nòs Gaelic Resources
    • Poems in English for schools
    • Scots poems for bairns
    • Posters
  • Events
    • What’s On
    • Organising a cultural event at the SPL
    • Meeting rooms and venue hire
  • Shop
    • SPL Shop
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Our projects
    • FAQs
    • Company papers
    • Jobs & Volunteering
    • Find us
    • Contact us
    • Making a complaint
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poetry
  • >
  • listening
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

listening

The Listeners - by Walter de la Mare

{ Poem }

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
/ Knocking on the moonlit door;
/ And his horse in…

The Art of Listening - by Veronica Aaronson

{ Poem }

Hunt out wild flowers,
reach out, not to pick them
but as an offer of intimacy.

On Hearing for the First Time - by Carole Bromley

{ Poem }

‘It sounds very very high’
/
/ and she sobs for the joy of it,
/ for the reds and blues of it,
/ the shock, the…

Soondscapes - by Christine De Luca

{ Poem }

I da dizzied hoose, a strum of flechs baet
/ endless drums fornenst a frenzied window.
/ Belligerent, dey want nedder in nor oot.
/
/ Apö…

I have lost my bearings - by Anna Crowe

{ Poem }

It is time to go north. I want / to listen to silence and unpick its voices: / the wind…

from The Cherrie and The Slae - by Alexander Montgomerie

{ Poem }

About ane bank, where birds on bewis
/ Ten thousand times their notis renewis
/ Ilk hour into the day,
/ The…

‘By lone St. Mary’s silent lake’ - by Sir Walter Scott

{ Poem }

By lone St. Mary’s silent lake:
/ Thou know’st it well,—nor fen nor sedge
/ Pollute the pure lake’s crystal edge;
/ Abrupt and sheer, the…

Sounds of the Day - by Norman MacCaig

{ Poem }

When a clatter came,
/ it was horses crossing the ford.
/ When the air creaked, it was
/ a lapwing seeing us off the premises
/ of…

Listen. Put on morning - by W. S. Graham

{ Poem }

Listen. Put on morning.
/ Waken into falling light.
/ A man’s imagining
/ Suddenly may inherit
/ The handclapping centuries
/ Of his one minute on earth.
/ And hear the…

Nameless - by William Montgomerie

{ Poem }

Its light is in the grass,
/ Its yearning in the white gull’s cry
/ And…

Thwok! - by Matt Harvey

{ Poem }

up loops a lob with a teasing temerity
leaps in the air in defiance of gravity
puts it away with a savage severity
coupled with suavity

Sounds - by Norman Bissell

{ Poem }

Sometimes here
/ it’s hard to tell
/ the sound of the wind
/ from the sound of the waves
/ or the sound of the waves
/ from the…

1 2 Next
  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy (UK)
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2026.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
Scottish Poetry Library
Manage Consent

To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.

We use privacy-focused tracking technologies to help us understand and improve the experience of our visitors. We track activity, not users, but you can still object to this tracking via our cookie policy.

Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
  • Manage options
  • Manage services
  • Manage {vendor_count} vendors
  • Read more about these purposes
View preferences
  • {title}
  • {title}
  • {title}