Not my Circus, Not my Monkey Poems & Tales in Scots & English by Sheena Blackhall & Tom Hubbard Published by Malfranteaux Concepts 2020 © Copyright Sheena Blackhall and Tom Hubbard 2020 The cover image is of an Aztec monkey god (1) Sheena Blackhall Ozomatli the Aztec monkey was considered the companion spirit ('nahual') and servant of the god Xochipilli (god of music and dance). The monkey was a creature associated with the arts, games and fun. The song 'Elphinstane' was written to commemorate the Institute's 25th anniversary. Others celebrate the recently opened Music Hall & Art Gallery in Aberdeen. Gairden Veesitors was inspired by a calendar created by the wildlife photographer Catriona Low of Kintore. Dreams was written in Glasgow's Botanic Gardens inspired by a tea tree, during a workshop overseen by Larry Butler. Blythe was one of the first poems written as Makar for the Doric Board. Blythe Yule in Aiberdeen was published in the Evening Express. Thanks are due to Philip & Vicki Watt for their ongoing help and support. Acknowledgements (2) Tom Hubbard Not all the pieces in my section are 'new' in a strict sense, but they appear here together, along with more recent items, for the first time. Thanks to the Ledig- Rowohlt Foundation for my 2012 residency at the Château Lavigny, Canton of Vaud, Switzerland, where a number of these pieces were composed. I'd also like to thank the Elphinstone Institute of Aberdeen University.where, as a Visiting Scholar in 2012, I gave the lecture on William Alexander; I'm also indebted to my friends at Glasgow University's Slavonic section (School of Modern Languages and Cultures) for inviting me to present the paper on Pushkin in Scotland at a weekend conference in December 2019. I was fair joco when Sheena invited me to share this pamphlet, the third of our collaborations .since 2012! My daughter Claire Hubbard has helped with the pagination. Thanks, too, to the editors of the following publications where some of these pieces appeared for the first time: Bella Caledonia; A Festschrift for Duncan Glen at Seventy-Five; Fras; The Glad Rag; Lallans; The One O' Clock Gun; Scotia Nova; Scottish Poetry in Translation. For details of my recent books of poetry and fiction, please visit the website of Grace Notes Publications. Details of these and my other works are also available on the online catalogues of the National Library of Scotland, Glasgow University Library, and the Scottish Poetry Library.