The FREE literary magazine of the North Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020

ZOË STRACHAN mines the mythic, CHRIS POWICI and friends go multilingual, KEVIN MACNEIL and LORETTA MULHOLLAND find Japanese inspiration, CHRISTOPHER WHYTE talks Gaelic without limits with JENNIFER MORAG HENDERSON, SIMON HALL surveys the work of ROBERT ALAN JAMIESON, writers respond to C-World, PLUS stories, poems and reviews in harvest plenty Sgrìobhadh ùr Gàidhlig le Maoilios Caimbeul, Màrtainn Mac an t-Saoir, Lodaidh MacFhionghain, Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh, Caoimhin MacNèill, Deborah Moffatt agus Eòghan Stiùbhart. New Gaelic writing from Myles Campbell, Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh, Martin MacIntyre, Lewis MacKinnon, Kevin MacNeil, Deborah Moffat and Eoghan Stewart. EDITORIAL or the second time in a row, most of you Contents will be reading this new issue online, rather 3 Thanks to Adrian; Pat The Horse; Spirit Calls; Northwords Now community than in print. A limited print run has been F 4 Mythopraxis – by Zoë Strachan sent to writers contributing to this edition for sharing through their own networks, but most of 6 Dàin le Maoilios Caimbeul, Lodaidh MacFhionghain agus Màrtainn Mac an t-Saoir our normal distribution outlets remain closed. The situation’s not ideal. But the good news is: 8 Poems by Chris Powici, with translations by Christie Williamson, Rody Gorman, Roderick we’re still here; still making plans that will allow Watson, Kevin MacNeil, Roseanne Watt us to adapt to ever-changing circumstances; 9 Poems by Ingrid Leonard still attracting interest and warm support from writers and readers across Scotland and the 10 The Black Square – Story by Mark Ryan Smith wider north; still supported by our funders, who 11 Diefenbaker - Sgeulachd le Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh value the breadth of our reach in both language and geographical coverage. Advice from staff 12 Poems by Paula Jennings and Gail Brown in Creative Scotland’s Literature and Creative 13 Epicentre – Story by Ian Tallach Industries teams has been an invaluable aspect of Caw – Story by Alistair Lawrie that support in recent months. The diversity of voices and content in this 14 Japan Poems by Kevin MacNeil issue gives a sense of vigour. That’s reflected both 15 The Box is only Temporary – Story by Anne Elizabeth Edwards in how we’ve grown from 32 pages to 40, plus the spring ‘Tuath’ supplement, in 2020, and in Wild Things Are – Essay by Adam Boggon the energy of the work included. In turn, that 16 Dàin le Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh, Màrtainn Mac an t-Saoir agus Deborah Moffatt reveals the current strength of new writing across the Scottish literary community. 18 Poems by Richie McCaffery and Graham Fulton Some of the writers included here have 19 Poems by Robin Munro, Antonia Kearton and Kenneth Steven responded directly to the pandemic, with skilful wordcraft and even humour. But this is no Covid- 20 Ceum air Cheum: Christopher Whyte talks to Jennifer Morag Henderson 19 souvenir edition, for many other writers have 22 Poems by Mandy Haggith also flexed their keyboard fingers or pen nibs and produced exciting new work, untrammelled by 23 Poems by Ian Olson, Karen Lesley MacDonald, Edith Harper, Kay Clive, Sharon Black lockdowns and social isolation. 24 Wee Tam and Roy Rogers – Story by D.B. MacInnes I hope that what’s gathered here will give you pleasure and inspiration through the darker 25 Overtime – Story by Mark Edwards months before spring. With a hard-working 26 Poems by Hugh McMillan Northwords board, a community valuing the publication both on- and offline and vital support 27 Dàin le Deborah Moffatt agus Eòghan Stiùbhart and advice from our funders, Northwords Now is The Seer – by Alison Bell still flourishing. Enjoy this autumn’s harvest. n 28 Zen and the Art of Lady Bird – Loretta Mulholland

Kenny Taylor, Editor 30 Poems by John Miller, Joanna Wright, Juliet Antill 31 Poems by Leonie Charlton, Simon Berry 32 The work of Robert Alan Jamieson – by Simon Wilson Hall Visit the Northwords Now Website: 34 Poems by Robert Alan Jamieson and Helen Allison northwordsnow.co.uk for archive resources and to submit work 35 Reviews – including by Valerie Beattie and Cynthia Rogerson on fiction, Kenny Taylor on non-fiction and Becs Boyd, Anne Macleod, Lydia Harris and Ian Stephen on new poetry collections 39 McPhee’s Day Trip - Story by John Robertson Nicoll www.facebook.com/groups/northwordsnow/ And on Twitter @NorthwordsNow 40 Contributors’ biographies, Northwords Now online and in social media

Northwords Now is a twice yearly literary Advertising review books (not submissions of To submit your work online, go to magazine published by Northwords, a not- [email protected] writing) should be sent to: our website: northwordsnow.co.uk for-profit company, registered in February northwordsnow.co.uk/advertising The next issue is planned for April 2005. Company number SC280553. The Editor, Northwords Now 2021. The deadline for submissions Subscriptions Easter Brae is 31st January 2021. If accepted for Board members The magazine is FREE and, at pandemic- Culbokie publication, you will hear about your Valerie Beattie (Chair), Lesley Harrison, free time, available across Scotland. The Dingwall submission by 31st March 2021, so Sherry Morris, Kirsty Gunn fee for individual ‘home delivery’ is £6 for Ross-shire feel free to submit elsewhere if we 2 issues. Cheques payable to ‘Northwords’. Editor IV7 8JU have not contacted you by then. Kenny Taylor, Front cover image: Loch Avon from Cairn [email protected] The Board and Editor Gorm, Cairngorms National Park by Antonia of Northwords Now Gaelic Editor Kearton https://antoniakearton.co.uk/ acknowledge support Rody Gorman, from Creative Scotland [email protected] Submissions to the magazine, through our and Bòrd na Gàidhlig. on-line system on the Northwords Now ISSN 1750-7928 Contributing writers website, are welcome. They can be in Gaelic, Lydia Harris , Jennifer Morag Henderson, English, Scots and any local variants. Donald S. Murray, Cynthia Rogerson, Please submit no more than three short Ian Stephen, Ian Tallach stories or six poems, in MS Word format Designer (not .pdf). All work must be previously Gustaf Eriksson unpublished in print or on-line. Copyright www.gustaferiksson.com remains with the author. Payment is made for all successful submissions.

Postal submissions of potential

2 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 members who have joined in this time – Lesley Harrison, Sherry Morris and Spirit: Kirsty Gunn – have all been very active in helping with different aspects of the Autobiography Northwords Now project, not least during current challenges. A constant, across the whole span of Northwords Now from Issue – Call for 1, has been our designer, Gustaf Eriksson. His flair for page layout (including those Stories tricksy, variable line lengths used by some poets, as if to stretch design skills to the s part of a major project to limit) has been an important part of promote culture and heritage shaping the look of the publication. Aacross the Highlands, ‘Spirit/ But throughout Adrian’s time on the Spiorad of the Highlands is looking for board, Valerie Beattie has also been part stories told by people who live, work of the team. Having developed the first and visit here. These will be used in a undergraduate literature course for the digital archive, called Spirit: Autobiography, University of the Highlands and Islands, and some will also be used to inspire Valerie is now happily independent commissioned artists and form the basis of academia and working to complete of an exhibition in Inverness Castle when two different books. Her good humour it reopens. and patience in the face of this year’s “We’re looking for stories behind the especially difficult demands of budgeting, headlines of history,” say the organisers, planning and more has been a boon to “stories about people you might hear all – not least this editor. at a ceilidh; the uncle who worked on So, as the new solar cycle starts, I’ll the hydro schemes; the sister that set up raise a cap (or maybe a bush hat, given the local fèis; the niece that kayaked the his typical headgear) on behalf of the Great Glen in record time. Northwords Now team to Adrian, to “And we want to hear stories of thank him for all he’s done across those communities too, large and small.” eleven years, and to welcome Valerie in Stories can be up to 350 words, and/ Adrian Clark with his kayak on Skye. Photo: Kenny Taylor her new role. Here’s to some bright lights or photographs and short audio or AV in the north. n files can also be uploaded. The deadline Kenny Taylor is November 30th 2020, and you can find out more – and upload your stories and Hats off to Adrian images – at www.spiritofthehighlands. com.n

span of eleven years can have a and supporters clinched that deal in A Pat on the certain resonance, not least for 2012. Since then, Evanton Community Athose with an interest in the Wood has been one of Scotland’s leading Back for The Northern Lights. Typically, the number of examples of how to make woodlands auroral spectaculars that grace the heavens work for people and wildlife. Access, Dark Horse tracks the activity of the sun, whose ‘spots’ education for all ages and abilities, timber – and the explosive ejections from them building construction, artworks, skills ontinuing a bit of a theme of that help to spark auroras – rise and fall training and boosts for biodiversity have time passed, time passing and and rise again on a roughly eleven-year all been part of that mix. Cyet to come on this page, it’s Northwords cycle. According to space scientists, we’ve Adrian has been part of the Evanton fitting to give a friendly nod and pat of just begun a new cycle. Wood Community company throughout, milestone-birthday-year approval to The So much, so celestial. Back at the start including as Chair and now Secretary. Dark Horse. From humble – and cramped Now online of the previous cycle, and down on Planet At the same time, oral history, amateur – beginnings on the kitchen table of the Earth in 2009, Northwords Now was also dramatics, sports and Gaelic learning have Ayrshire caravan where its editor, Gerry and in social experiencing a shift. Rhoda Dunbar was been in his frame of activities. And – of Cambridge, was then based, ‘The Horse’ about to stand down as editor after more course – Northwords Now. The expression has grown to become Scotland’s leading than a dozen issues. She’d resuscitated the can be over-used to the point of cliché, poetry magazine. media publication, after a brief hiatus, from its but he’s ‘quite literally’ been a hands-on Over the past 25 years, the publication hanks to support from our predecessor ‘Northwords’ – the magazine chair. Hands that have lifted and stacked has featured the work of some of the funders, Creative Scotland and that ran for 34 issues from 1991 to 2004 the bundles of each new edition after it’s major figures of contemporary Scottish, TBòrd na Gàidhlig, Northwords – and would pass the editorial baton to arrived, fresh from the printing press, to Irish and American poetry (if I mention Now will continue to develop its online Chris Powici in the following year. clog his garage for a few days. Hands on Edwin Morgan and Seamus Heaney, need presence in the coming months and to In the summer of 2009, Adrian Clark the sorting of packets to be distributed I say more?) as well as other, lesser known, expand our use of social media. This joined the Northwords board and took by post. Hands on the steering wheel as poets whose work has been championed should include an amount of new material over from Kathleen Irvine as chair. he drove to parts of the Highlands and by Gerry. With assistant editors in the on our website www.northwordsnow. Adrian was already a weel-kent figure northeast to deliver bundles. Hands on U.S.A, The Dark Horse is Scotland’s co.uk between publication of new issues, in Scotland’s northern arts scene. Still a keyboard to create spreadsheets and transatlantic poetry magazine, both in plus extra postings to share news on working at that time as a Highland budgets to meet the needs of funders and terms of the new poetry it publishes and Facebook and Twitter. The Facebook Council cultural officer for Caithness, contributors. in the essays and critiques for which it is group @NorthwordsNow already has a Sutherland and Easter Ross, he helped During his time as Chair, Adrian has renowned. Not afraid of controversy in good community of writers and readers to build enthusiasm and audiences across been helped by a range of other board some of the criticism and reviews within who share their own news of events, that vast area for exhibitions, live music, members, who might often devote time its pages, new editions are guaranteed to publications and more. If you haven’t literature and more. and expertise for a few years and then give readers both pleasure and challenge. joined or had a look at these social media At the same time, he was part of a need to move on. In the last three years, If you haven’t encountered this channels recently, a visit could provide group that spent several years raising funds thanks are due in this way, for example, lively equine as yet, go to www. some helpful pointers for both writing for the community purchase of woodland to Kristin Pedroja, Anne MacLeod thedarkhorsemagazine.com for details of and new reading through the Northwords near his family home in Evanton. Villagers and Peter Whiteley. The three board how to subscribe. n Now community. n

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 3 Mythopraxis

By Zoë Strachan

he stone known as Calanais ‘The stone is a flat slab of gneiss,’ they I scrambled up hoping to see badgers. center, from whence he address’d himself XII stands in a small housing recorded in the Ninth Report with Inventory There was (and is) simply an excess of to the People that surrounded him.’ Testate in the village of Brèascleit. on the Monuments and Constructions in the carparks, circled by a one-way system. When I was too young to have a sense Its base is set in concrete, four sloped Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Small Isles, ‘3 The Pevsner guide reminds us that from of the size of my town never mind the planes set with round stones, a style feet 5 inches in height and 5 ½ inches the right angle, the multi-storey, ‘with its world, I assumed that Jesus Christ had familiar from the edges of car parks built thick, set in a packing of small stones at many steel vertical emphases . . . has an been crucified on the large cross that in the 70s remodelling of the historic base.’ architectural quality not usually associated poked from a hill of stones outside the centre of Kilmarnock, my hometown. A The Lewisian gneisses are at the with such a function.’ church on Portland Road. The church wooden fence screens the megalith from extreme end of complexity in terms of In 1934, the Stornoway Gazette itself was modern ribbed concrete. I the nearest house, or the nearest house age, geologist John Faithfull explained to published Donald Maciver’s Place wasn’t daft. I knew it had been added from it. Sometimes there is a yellow grit me as we stood together on a picket line Names of Lewis and Harris. Maciver was later. bin beside it. The main alignments at outside the university where we work. a headmaster who lived in Brèascleit for Alan Stevenson tried to use gneiss Calanais were erected around 5000 years The stones used at Calanais ‘lived’ as thirteen years from 1883. Calanais XII from Hynish on Tiree for Skerryvore, the ago, so we can guess that Calanais XII has dynamic geological entities for hundreds must have been obscured by peat then, lighthouse that his nephew Robert Louis been there for a while. The houses may of millions of years, before resting in a but perhaps he walked past on his way to Stevenson considered ‘the noblest of all be fleeting neighbours, their inhabitants stable state for billions of years more, until and from the school. He left for Bayble, extant deep-sea lights.’ It was too difficult gone in the blink of a stony eye. the present day. ‘The Lewisian rocks have on the peninsula I once heard referred to work, and he got as far as the first I became obsessed with Calanais seen between half and three-quarters of to as ‘the people’s republic of Point’, in three courses of stone before switching XII after seeing two photographs taken the history of our planet.’ 1896. Scholars of place names consider to pink granite from Camas Tuath on the by Homer Sykes when he made a trip him an enthusiastic amateur, prone to Ross of Mull. ‘The bottom part of the to Lewis in the 1970s. It appears in The stories we inherit stick missteps, but he lived in some of the tower of Skerryvore lighthouse is one the foreground of one image, almost places he wrote about and walked with of the few structures on Earth made of inconveniently close to 14 Stonefield, in our mind like skipping people in others. He appreciated the shaped Lewisian gneiss,’ John Faithfull the white pebbledash house behind it. potency of naming. ‘The hill from which said. (By this point, his collie dog Spud A collie dog saunters past. The house rhymes, tied to a place or sheep are driven far and wide in summer’, was keening to leave the icy picket line behind and to the right looks identical, he termed one hill near Calanais, while and head for the park.) The difficulty of even down to the collie dog. In the next an action, remembered and another became ‘the farewell place’, the shaping and moving megaliths gives rise photograph in the series a woman looks last place with a view of home. to many of the legends that spring up out from the doorway of 14 Stonefield. misremembered. The stories we inherit stick in our around stone circles. Heathens petrified, In a trick of perspective, Calanais XII has mind like skipping rhymes, tied to a that sort of thing. grown to almost twice her height. From place or an action, remembered and Around 1960, night-time sightings of the angle of the photo, it seems as if she’d misremembered. Plain, purl. Perhaps a strange white lady near the Garynahine have to clamber over the concreted stones sometimes we can retell them, make Bridge were reported by local motorists in the base to get out. When you begin to enlarge the them afresh. as well as dozens of RAF men being When I was a child, there was a online Canmore map of the western bussed back to the base at Uig after an playground game that involved working side of Lewis, there’s a moment of Under the bramble bushes evening of R&R in Stornoway. Local a tennis ball into the toe of a knee-high disappointment. Nothing appears but Under the trees tales of murder at Garynahine Lodge sock. The sock could then be thrown familiar Ordnance Survey. Then, as you Boom boom boom were recalled. When the Stornoway into a weaselly wiggle across the tarmac click to enlarge further, a host of grey True love to me my darling Gazette asked Mrs Elizabeth Perrins, wife playground that was particularly effective blue dots burst into focus, scores of them, True love to you of the new owner of the estate, whether in the neon yellow or pink colourways overlapping and overwhelming the B Boom boom boom she had seen anything of the ‘Silver Lady that had become fashionable in the 80s. roads and lochans, the place names and When we get married of Garynahine’ she explained that she Popular too was standing with your back contour lines. It reminds me of seeing We’ll raise a family often walked by Garynahine Bridge at against a wall and swinging the sock from Man Ray’s Dust Breeding in an exhibition. So night, ‘for the heck of it, and sometimes side to side, under knee, over shoulder, You think you’re looking at an image SS Blue to watch other people’s nocturnal bouncing the tennis ball while chanting a of one thing, and before your eyes it I love you activities . . . it’s not ghosts I’m looking clapping rhyme. When I did this at home, transforms, and you see Duchamp’s The How many buses to Timbuktu? for, but poachers.’ The Gazette probed against the side wall of our new-to-us Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even. Mr Brown says twenty four further, and Mrs Perrins replied, ‘If it’s a house, the roughcast sprang off in glittery At least nine more stone circles are extant So shut your mouth fine night I wear an evening dress, and if sprinkles, fragments of stone and shell near Calanais I, along with numerous And say no more. it rains, I wear a white drip-dry raincoat washing around my feet. cairns and individual stones. Close up, with a closed hood. I also carry a stick. I the western side of Lewis is a megalithic The writer Martin Martin was am sorry to spoil the ghost story but it Bumble bees megalopolis. much taken by the circle and avenues really is terribly funny.’ When the houses Louisiana Town planning photographs of at Calanais I when he visited in 1695, at Stonefield were being built a few years My black cat can play the piana Kilmarnock show the new Foregate considering them: ‘The most remarkable later, it was Mrs Perrins who ensured that It can play the tune of Anna development bright and new, the sun Stones for Number, Bignes, and Order.’ Callanish XII remained in situ. Bacon, eggs, or chips? shining on early 70s shoppers. The old While reassuring his readers that only Chips! Fore Street is gone, as is Clerk’s Lane and ‘the Oldest and most Ignorant of the . . . its church, the Star Hotel and the Sun Vulgar’ of the Western Isles indulged in Died in a chip shop When the Royal Commission on Inn, the weavers and smithies, the wells pagan superstition, he, ‘enquir’d of the Last night the Ancient and Historical Monuments and pumps, the skin yards and tanneries, Inhabitants what Tradition they had What was he eating? of Scotland made a field visit on 19th the gallows that once stood at the Cross. from their Ancestors concerning these Raw fish. July 1923, the stone at Blair, Township I wasn’t aware of the extent of the past Stones; and they told me, it was a Place How did he die? of Breasclete had been revealed by peat when I was growing up, not really, appointed for Worship in the Time of Like this [mime] cutting on the south side of the road a few although sometimes I thought of what Heathenism, and that the Chief Druid hundred yards north-west of the school. might have happened at Judas Hill when or Priest stood near the big Stone in the In the late 80s, there was a spate of Grey

4 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 Lady sightings in the park surrounding the Dean Castle in Kilmarnock. Tucked away in the woods are the graves of the 8th Lord Howard de Walden and his wife Margherita, surrounded by a metal fence that echoes a mortsafe. Beside them is the statue of an angel consoling a shrouded figure, a memorial to de Walden’s mother Blanche. The lichen on the stone plinth, the mottled blue-grey of the statue, the reference to ‘All That Was Mortal’ of Blanche in the inscription, combines with the dank setting to create an eerie effect. Sometimes my dog (a spaniel, not a collie) would run in there, off the lead and not particularly well-trained. I disliked going alone into the hedged enclosure to retrieve her. Boswell and Johnson took a copy of Martin Martin’s book with them on their own tour of the Hebrides. After visiting the stones at Strichen and then passing what must have been part of the Clava Cairns grouping near Inverness, Dr Johnson decided that, ‘to go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power in it; and seeing one is quite enough.’ Boswell seems to have concurred, and neither men made it to Calanais. . . . And the dance they do Is enough to kill a coo And the coo they kill Is enough to take a pill And the pill they take Is enough to fry a snake And the snake they fry Is enough to tell a lie And the lie they tell Is enough to ring a bell And the bell they ring Goes dingalingaling!

In 2009, Junior Technician Jeff Chambers (5067068) remained unconvinced by the Gazette’s explanation of the ghost at Garynahine, commenting on the Uig Historical Society website that, ‘The white lady may be a myth, but I saw her when she was apparently run over by the RAF Aird Uig bus one night in 1960. When the bus stopped I was first off and ran back but nothing there and also nothing under the bus, but both I and the driver were certain we had run over her. Whatever she/it was we both saw it.’ For around eight years, I was an inveterate school refuser. There were several reasons for this, not all of which I recognised at the time. Now I consider myself easily institutionalised; then, my daily life was a mismatch. I preferred Ink drawing by Alice V. Taylor my own version of Stevenson’s ‘land of counterpane’, books beside me to be taken one in the morning and one in the afternoon. In the absence of Polly’s in the kitchen and numinous. We don’t know how to me to the past, bind me to the future. I religion, I venerated reading and animals. Doing a bit of stitchin move through them, or what words to like to think that having a standing stone Aged fourteen or so I wrote to the In comes the bogeyman say. When I go to Calanais now it feels in your village, your street, outside your Pagan Federation after seeing someone And out goes she like a pilgrimage. I look for the glitter in side door would be transcendent as well with a copy of The Wiccan on a train. the gneiss, run my hands over the rough as everyday. That Calanais XII would feel Membership seemed pricey though, and The Neolithic has no user manuals to surface, smell the damp of the rock. When like a touchstone, a truth. n access to mysteries elusive. hand over, no holy books or hieroglyphs. I blink, it feels as if I might catch a glowing Its circles and alignments stand silent thread of continuity, something to hold

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 5 Am Bìdeadh air Ais Bròn Bodach an Stòrr An Aon Chuairteal Maoilios Caimbeul Maoilios Caimbeul Lodaidh MacFhiongain

Am broc is an rodan, An seo nam aonar gun sgeul air daoine, Nuair a chì mi thu am marmot ’s crogall, Càit air an t-saoghal a bheil an sluagh Nad laighe a’ sin iad a’ bìdeadh air ais; A b’ àbhaist bhith taomadh suas an aonaich Air a’ langasaid Le ceuman aotrom làn gàir’ is luaidh? Saoilidh mi gu bheil thu ann nad chiste an struth is a’ pheucag, Beag, goirid, sgiobalta a h-uile creutair an cèidse, An-uiridh fhèin bha an t-àite ag èigheach iad a’ bìdeadh air ais. Le iomadh treubh bho feadh an t-saoghail, Ach fhad ’s a choimhead mi ort Ag ràdh slàint’ dhut a bhodaich chàirdeil Chunnaic mi mi fhìn Mar a dh’èirich an Wuhan, Ach an-diugh tha sàmhchair is gainnead dhaoin’. Ann an aigne mo shùla tha na beathaichean uile Nam chuingean-ceangail òige a’ bìdeadh air ais; ’S iomadh bliadhna a sheas mi ciatach Beag, goirid, sgiobalta A’ fulang shiantan le teas is fuachd, lagh na cruinne ag èigheach Ach chan fhaca mi riamh e mar tha e ’m-bliadhna Dà dheireadh na cuir sinn an cèidse Grian Ògmhios dian ’s gun duin’ mun cuairt. no bidh bìdeadh air ais. Tha an t-àm seo neònach, no a’ dol gòrach, Le bhìorasan nimheil A’ phàirc tha leòmach, i falamh lom, An aon chuairteal bidh dragh ann is ribe Gun bus na càr innt’, cho fad bhon àbhaist Lodaidh MacFhiongain leis a’ bhìdeadh air ais. ’S gu bheil e gam fhàgail tinn is trom. Chaill mi mo dhìorras Tha an saoghal dhuinn uile, A chlann nan daoine dè thachair dhuibhse chan eil fhios’m càite mura bi, bidh a’ bhuil ann – Le camarathan daora a’ togail dhealbh? tha seans an àiteigin mòr-bhìdeadh air ais. Tha gàire air m’ aodann, is bithidh daonnan, ann an amharas A’ feitheamh ribhse a thighinn gam shealg. ann an às-dùnadh ann an àrdan A chlann nan daoine dè thachair dhuibhse? ann am bòstalachd Às Dèidh na Càisge Tha fhios gun taom sibh a-rithist nam chòrr; ann am brìoghmhorachd Maoilios Caimbeul Mi ’g ionndrainn dhaoine, ’s mi seo nam aonar, ann am breugachd Gach là is oidhche a’ sileadh dheòir. ann an coimheirps eudach H-abair latha! 23/06/2020 ann an cinnteachd Flòdaigearraidh sgiamhach mar a bha e riamh, ann an ceacharrachd an t-adhar gorm gun sgòth san adhar, ann an earbs na bruaichean buidhe le sòbhraichean ann an earbsachd ’s buidheag an t-samhraidh na glòir òr-bhuidhe Trì Chuideim ann an eagal tràilleil ’s os mo chionn ceilearadh nan eun. Lodaidh MacFhiongain ann am fèin-mheas ann am fìrinnteachd Na h-uain a’ ruith ’s a’ leum ’s ri mire, Mionaidean tostach a mhaireas fad beatha ann am follaiseachd mar an lainnir air Loch Leum nam Bràdh, Is an fhadachd is an gaol is an spèis nan làthair ann an gràin leis an t-seann taigh-sgoile os a chionn Daonnan a’ beò-ghlacadh ann an gaol gun bhuannachd falamh, sàmhach, gun aon phàiste, ann an goid a’ toirt nam chuimhne Thèid an gabhail riutha coltach ri beusan nàireach ann an iochd suidheachadh an t-saoghail ga do chur fo thàmailt ann an doimhneachd ann an iol-chomas far a bheil a’ phlàigh a’ gabhail àite, Far am beachdnaichear nach eil dol às ann an iongantas far a bheil èiginn is bàs ann an leth-bhreith air an t-seachdain seo Ach thàinig leasachadh thron t-soilleireachadh ann an leibideachd às dèidh na Càisge. Gur e a bhith a’ gabhail riutha ann an lùbachd Gun bhreitheanas an rathad airson an ann am mealltachd Flòdaigearraidh sgiamhach mar a bha e riamh, aotromachadh ann am mì-ghnàthachadh le ceilearadh nan eun, ann am mór-uaill ach bròn cuideachd a’ bruthadh mar sgàile Is na trì chuideim a tha seo ann an nàire oirnn uile, ’s air na deiseachan gorma gràdhach, A’ fleòdradh air cuan brèagha fiadhaich luasganach ann an nàimhdeas ann am bliadhna uabhasach na plàighe. Na thaomadh agus shruthadh gun chrìch ann an neo-eisimileachd ann an onair Gidheadh, tha ar sùil ri aiseirigh eile, ann an oillt aiseirigh bhuidhe, ann an òl a thàinig le gibht na Càisge. ann am peanas ann am pàirteachadh ann am pròis ann an ro-dhèidhealachd ann an raige ann an ro-aire ann an sannt ann an slìomaireachd ann an soideal ann an trèigsinneachd ann an tuirseachd ann an tiamhaidheachd ann an uaigneas ann an ùpraid ann an ùghdarrachd

6 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 Do Phîhtokahanapiwiyin Poundmaker on Cò a sheinneas an t-altachadh-beatha? Chinneach Ghàidhealach an Albainn Nuaidh Lodaidh MacFhiongain Lodaidh MacFhiongain Cò a dh’fhaodadh a ràdhainn cò sinne ? An seanchaidh, an sgeulaiche, an seòd? Bu ro cheart a bhiodh e na’ faigheadh tu aithneachadh Fireanachadh airson na h-uileadh a chaidh fhulaing Sinne a tha air stac nòis aig an robh tuigs’ air fhèin. Uair air a’ Phràiridh, treun, uasal, saor Nòs a tha sean, seasmhach, soganach. Ceannsaichte ’ro chealg Le cridheachan ceacharra Nuair a thig an luchd-coimhich air chèilidh Gu dè an iùil, an linn, an fheallsanachd-mhaise a bhiodh gan stiùireadh? Fairichidh sinn na h-aona fhaireachdainnean A dh’fhairicheas do threubh Cò a leigeas a-staigh iad Ana-ceartas, irisleachadh, breisleach Le an claon-bhreith gun fhiosta dhaibh, Nuair a ghoideas coimhich brìgh do sgeòil Am bodach, a’ chailleach, a’ mhuime, An t-oide, an t-eòlaiche, an tàilleabhachd na an t-òigear? Chaill sinn mar a chaill sibh-se Ach ’ro thrèigsinneachd ar ceannardan Air neo an e am bèibidh uile-làthaireach air ùr-bhreith Treòraichean air an robh e air a dhèanadh A’ coimhead airson comhart gun chùmhnant A bhi a’ gabhail ri dòighean nan ceannsaichean Le a ghàirdean sìnt’ a-mach An cànan, an cultar agus an nithean-tàlaidh A sheinneas riù?

An dà, chan urrainn dhuinn na ceannardan o shean againn ath-bhuannachadh Ged a nì sinn sìth leò far am faigh iad easbaloid Iuchair an Dorais Ach nì sinn dannsa cruinn còmhla ribh, làmh a chèile Màrtainn Mac An t-Saoir Is cruthachaidh sinn ceannardan ùa às ar cinneach sgairteil às ùine bhig Is gabhaidh sinn òran leibh am fonn ag èibheachd air Cailleach na Cruinne Tha i agad a-nist A dh’altramaicheas sinn slàn, fallain, ath-bheothaichte an iuchair Nar fìor nàisean às ùr. is bliadhnaichean a dèanamh taisgte na do chùrsa. ’S ann mìn, sgiobalta, èasgaidh a tha i cuiridh ioma glas fàilt’ oirre gun cheist. Marbh-bheò Lodaidh MacFhiongain Ach mas e is gum fàs i meirgeach ri ùine no a cumadh corrach, lùbte, na caith bhuat i Chan eil an comas agam a thuigsinn ged a b’ e an drathair bu duirche b’ ìsle a ghabh ri a cùmhnadh. do làthaireachd rim thaobh dìreach an-dràst’ Is nuair a thig àm-cuingte, no mar as iomchaidh, thoir às is glan gu math i - tog òrd mas fheudar - Bha thu ann nam bheatha gun fhiosta is tionndaidh, air do shocair fhèin, a-rithist leatha, triop às deaghaidh triop is meal gach doras sean is ùr a dh’fhosgaileas ro do cheum. ged gu coltach nach aithnich thu mi

Cho dlùth ri dlùth Coltach ri Màiri, Banrigh nan Albannach Is Ealasaid a h-Aon na Sasainne

’S na h-oghaichean, a’ sgrìobhadh litrichean gu a chèile ach chan fhaca tè seach tè gu bràth is cha b’ urrainn do fiù ’s an gaol a bh’ ann go domhain stad a chur air a’ bhàs a bha ’dol a thighinn air a’ chridhe mhòr, air an fhadachd dhomhainn air a’ mhiann a dhìth air sonas chaidh an dithist againn an tìodhlacadh taobh ri taobh coltach ris an dà bhanrigh seo gun a bhith a’ faicinn a chèile aonaichte a-mhàin, marbh-bheò, air taobh eile a’ mhiann

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 7 Five poems by Chris Powici Eas Coastal Town Irish Gaelic Translation by Rody Gorman with translations by five other poets a big October moon rises from the deep bay gleo guairneán agus caisirníní shows its hurt, radiant face to the first stars le ciumhais cúráin and a whooper swan looking to land Drystone uisce na samhna gile ag sleamhnú thar fhréamhacha giúise down here, just the earth up to its usual tricks – another winter’s ice and rain agus thar charraigeacha leath báite the drub and scrape of hoof and horn a sea wind, an autumn tide swaying and these last lichen-riddled slabs an oiread splanc agus drithle the bladderwrack on a spit of beach; could creak and drop an oiread guth fuar agus tapaidh the glad serious faces of boys to the bare, wet moor leaning on the bike-park wall ach lig do thaca leis an bhfeothan but not yet glac anáil, éist go dlúth – a woman watches a herring gull ní deir an abhainn flap and cry from the kirk roof they stand and cling, they lean ach conas ligean as opens an old door, goes inside against the blue May sky conas titim anuas the bright wind afterwards, only the seaweed-scented air díreach fothram ar fud na gcrann streetlamps like small wet moons a wheatear whistles from its granite nook díreach maisiú agus rifeanna caite i dtraipisí some boys, somewhere, laughing and a blackface ewe rud as báisteach agus cloch bike wheels spinning in the dusk pushes through the swaying broom á chumadh féin is é ag gabháil an bealach rubs her tatty arse against this poor, half-fallen dyke and offers up a bleat or two in praise of stone Costal Toon Claonaig Ferry Shetland Translation by Roseanne Watt Oh I feel that you are near me, Oh I wish it to be The Unthanks a grett October mön buts fae de djub o de voe Dryston shaas its skammit, sheenin fiss tae de foremist starns Shetland Translation by Christie Williamson I lean against the wet steel of the guardrail an a whooper swaan skoitin fir a laandin listen to the engine’s soft, oily breath aniddir winter’s frost an faa and creak of tarpaulin from the car deck doon here, joost de aert up tae its öswil klooks – da scratch an scrummel o hoof an horn an dese hidmaest lichened slabs a gannet glides through drifts of summer rain a bakflan, a hairst string swittlin could girn an drap a cormorant stands for a second de bratwaar apo a sheave o saand; tae da weet, nekkit hill on a green wave de blyde sair faces o bouys and shakes the sea from its wings heeldin apo de bike-park daek but no yit halfway to Claonaig a wife waaks a skorie dey staund an cling, dey lean we’re all of us getting by flaag an greet fae de kirk röf agin da blue May lift on weather and oil and light oppins an aald door, gings inbi, da bricht blaa guillemot bob on the swell eftir, joost de tang-waff air a wheatear whisltles fae hit’s granite neuk kloss-lamps lik peerie weet möns an a blackfiss yow just below the surface some bouys, ee pliss, gaffin shivs trow da swayin broom moon jellies billow and sway bike wheels spinnin i de darkenin elts hir clerty erse agin dis puir amos, half faan daek an offers up a böl or twa but — to pop up from under water; to rise to the surface as in praise o ston seafowl do Claonaig Ferry djub — fisherman’s word for the deep Scots translation by Roderick Watson voe — an arm of the sea Oh I feel that you are near me, Oh I wish it to be skammit — an injured surface Falls The Unthanks skoit — to look with a specific purpose bakflan — a sudden gust of wind which, by mischance, clamour of eddies and foam-edged Leanin tae the railins’ drookit steel strikes a boat’s sail on the back side kinks of bright november water sliding I dirl til the diesel’s ily souch bratwaar — broken bits of seaweed strewn along the shoreline over pine roots and half-drowned rock an the reishle o tarps frae the car deck. sheave — a slice sair — severe so many flashes and glints A solan snooves through simmer smirr so many cold quick voices a scart stauns up on a green wave jist for a second but lean into the breeze tae shak the sea frae its wings. take a breath, listen close – all the river says Hauf owre tae Claonaig is how to let go we’re hingin-in thegither how to fall amang the licht, the ile, an the weather

just a noise among trees maggies are oot on the swall it’s all grace notes and throwaway riffs a thing of rain and stone i the cauldrife watter making itself up as it goes along the jeely fish wax and swyve.

8 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 The Quick Rain 449 Ingrid Leonard A roe deer lies cradled in the crook of your arms a buck of a few months, maybe a year. It was the phone number for the house Its ribs press against your ribs in which we sought each other in winter its neck touches your neck storms, our family of four connected to others, but no muscle twitch, no heave of breath wires stretched on poles, tight-roped under seabeds, from Stenness to Stronsay. You just want to do the right thing – lay the body down among the grasses No great sweat for a child of seven to learn and clovers at the side of the road and repeat, my fingers fit into hard-punched but it’s a rainy October night, without moon or stars holes as I turned the dial clockwise, and for all you know, the grass could be tangled felt the elastic pull and click, till it righted in brambles and fence-wire itself in a profusion of whirring. and the weight of the deer in your arms could be the weight of your soul in the world. Lightning entered the ear of a neighbour For all you know. when she answered, hand to elbow to head; the wind clattered the windows Its hooves dangle and swing and obscured the voices of elders: and the quick rain beats against the skin and eyes Don’t pick up the phone in a storm. like a wild clock. My father sounding my name as a question through a hall of booths in Chachapoyas, between cloud forest and jungle, where I gave An t-Uisge Luath our number to the operator, my father Scots Gaelic Translation by Kevin MacNeil imprinting onto her through the line.

Tha boc-earb na laighe ann an creathail do ghàirdeanan, The operator was the god of long distance earbag nach eil ach beagan mìosan a dh’ aois, neo bliadhna in her draughty cabina. Her pressed blouse ‘s dòcha. Tha aiseanan a’ beantainn ri d’ aiseanan, and skirt spoke of care and attention, tha amhach a’ beantainn ri d’ amhach; ach chan eil fhèitheag as if from the air-laundered shelves a’ snaothadh, chan eil e a’ tarraing anail ann. of kinswomen - the arable call of home.

Tha thu dìreach airson an rud ceart a dhèanamh - an corp a chur sìos anns an fheòir agus ‘sa chlòbhair ri taobh an rathaid, ach ‘s e oidhche fhliuch ‘san Dàmhair a th’ ann, In Appreciation gun ghealach ‘s gun rionnagan, agus cho fad ‘s a ‘s aithne dhut, Ingrid Leonard dh’ fhaodadh an fheòir a bhith air a dhol na paidearan le dris is uèir feansa, agus dh’ fhaodadh nach eil ann an cudthrom Hid’s cowld in the shadow o the stones, na h-earbaig nad ghàirdeanan ach cudthrom beat fluiks. The day’s the day fur uis tae set d’ anma anns an t-saoghail. Cho fad ‘s a ‘s aithne dhut. wur last stone in the ring – roond uis a skry o folk stand wi guid punk. Wance fithers, Tha ìngnean ag udalach, a’ luasgadh, brothers, uncles gi a last haeve, we’ll hiv agus tha an t-uisge luath a’ bualadh a circle tae match the moon’s standstill, air a’ chraiceann ‘s air a shùilean lit tang lowan atween. Efter, weeman mar ghleog fhiadhaich. will serve crab cluiks fur engral stomachs, eggs o the lerblade, Tak this draught o beer, we’ll drink hid taegither. Much obliged tae ye fur bidan awhile among uis, haddan back ‘Mar Sin Leibh Ma-thà.’ the litheran years. Stoop noo, hid’s time. Màrtainn Mac An t-Saoir

Cha chreid mi nach eil am fuaim againn a’ còrdadh riutha.’ beat fluiks – swing the arms vigorously across the body, to keep warm ‘Bha sinn fortanach ach rinn sinn obair chruaidh.’ punk – kindling ‘Chan e an aon chiall a th’ Alba is Scotland dhomhsa.’ tang – seaweed engral – ravenous Sin na thuirt balaich Runrig agus gu leòr eile thar nam bliadhnaichean mòra lerblade – cormorant is thar a’ bheagan sheachdainean air rèidio ron Dannsa Mu Dheireadh litheran – over-spilling an Sruighlea. stoop – quiet

An sàr-chòmhlan Gàidhlig sin a thrusas a threudan far gach beinn is monadh o air feadh na Roinn Eòrpa is bho bhailtean cian an t-saoghail.

Ach an seo fo chreig a’ chaisteil is na mìltean nam boil air am beulaibh ’s ann a tha iad a-nist a’ cur crìoch bhòidheach air a’ waltz a thòisich iad aig Dìnnear nan Tuathach is nam Beàrnarach, a’ dèanamh cinnteach le cùram modh is irisleachd, gun leig an ceòl-san le casan an càirdean na ceumannan ceart’ a ghabhail.

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 9 first heard of the Book from an with the laptop. I did what checks I could old Cullivoe man. He is dead now. The Story of the Black Square and, when that made no difference, I IHe was a storyteller, one of many took it to the ICT department and asked in his family, and, as a way of keeping them to have a look. They found nothing their stories alive, a recording was made By Mark Ryan Smith wrong. No malware or viruses. No of him. It is this recording I have to damage to any part of the hardware. No thank, if thank is the right word, for the ✯ evidence of remote access or malicious story I’m about to tell. I have no way infiltration. It must be something you’re of knowing if it will ever be read, but I The Book had been in Orkney at some elements of the Book’s story: mentions doing, they implied. Perhaps, they type these words to explain, to try and point. The Argentinian man in the story, of people who once held the Book; a hinted, I wasn’t as good a writer as I liked explain, what has happened to me. I have the man who acquires the Book, manages sneaky transliteration of the name of an to imagine. I picked up the laptop and been in this place for so long, walking to escape by placing the volume in the Orcadian minister who allegedly buried swept out of the room. and walking in the half-light, hearing National Library. But should some casual the Book in the garden of his manse. But maybe they had a point. After nothing but the click of the keys and the browser happen to withdraw the Book, Gilmartin was clever, despite the angry- all, as any writer knows, we can read sound of my steps echoing back from the they would be one of its people too. man persona, and I wanted to ask what something we’ve written again and concrete walls. I wrote a short article on the Book of he knew about the book. The success again, polishing as we go, and, when our When I heard about the Book, part Black Arts for the Shetland Times. People of my little article had spurred me on to text appears in print, the first thing we of my work was to make transcriptions seemed to enjoy colourful little folk write more about local folklore and I was notice is a glaring mistake in the first of the reel-to-reel tapes held by the stories about quaint local traditions, and, mulling over a longer essay or perhaps paragraph, as if the language we have archives. There were boxes and boxes even though the article contained no even a book on the subject. Gilmartin tried so carefully to control has played a of them. I can still remember the smell great insight or originality (I dashed it off might be a worthwhile contact. I got his trick and won the game in the end – a of those tapes – musty when a lid was typographical slip, a grammatical blunder, lifted, then a warm, sharp chemical an inexplicable absentee noun. Perhaps I smell would fill the room as the tape ran was imagining things? Perhaps I should through the machine. There was always stop blaming the machine and simply fix the fear a tape would break. They hadn’t what was wrong with my work? If an been played in so long. One moment of adverb is missing, put it back in. If the accidental tension and the voice would Blind Borges, sitting in faraway commas disappear from a long sentence, be gone forever. put them back in. Work slowly and Here, as far as I remember, is what he carefully. Make sure you say what you said about the Book: Buenos Aires, knew what he was mean. Read over what you’ve done. Drop the heavy anchor of a capital letter For example, I do know that in North at the start of every sentence. Squeeze a Yell there was a Book of Black Arts in talking about. The Book had been in full stop at the end. Stick to the basics circulation. and hopefully your words will retain the meaning you’ve given them. He didn’t know how the Book had Orkney at some point. This approach put me back in charge, come to Cullivoe, but in his grandfather’s, for a while at least. But, eventually, there or perhaps great-grandfather’s, time, was no way to deny what was happening. it had passed through the village, from The words were disappearing. Words I hand to hand. It was filled with what knew I’d written. Words I had typed, he called ‘mystical rites and spells’, it sometimes more than once, simply had white writing on black pages (he weren’t there when I went back to the repeated this fact several times), and document that once held them. And it could not be given away. Once the it was happening faster than before. I Book came into your possession, the couldn’t keep up. I would put the words only way to escape its influence was to on the page but couldn’t make them sell it for less than you paid. This, as the in half an hour), I couldn’t help feeling email address from the Times office and adhere. interviewer pointed out, could only go pleased with the rush of comments sent him a message. I tried saving multiple copies in on for so long. Sooner or later, as the that started to appear below the online An email came back right away. It different places. I printed everything price dropped to nothing, somebody version: ‘Fascinating’, ‘Spooky’, ‘I never appeared so quickly that it must have out. I took screenshots with my phone would be stuck with the Book. And heard about this before thankx’. But, been an automated response. I opened and emailed copies of things to myself. what would they have to sell then? What hidden in in a lengthy, rambling comment the message but it said nothing. Not a I opened cloud storage accounts with would the price be, in the end? by ‘Gilmartin’, a comment which single word. Nothing but a black mass three different providers. But no matter I reached the end of his story and incorporated a rant about the Council’s filling the message window. Another what I did, every version would end up stopped the tape. The reels of the reduced bin collection service and a Gilmartin joke, I assumed: the E-Book of exactly the same. If an adjective was machine observed me like two enormous misogynistic threat directed at the owner Black Arts. I closed the laptop. Perhaps missing in one iteration of a document, eyes. The story was only a few minutes of a Lerwick café, I found the words that he would write back soon. it was missing in them all. If a sentence long, but, over the next few weeks, as I appear on the first page of the Book of Then the words started to disappear. or paragraph was erased, every matching worked at my transcriptions, I felt the Black Arts: It was barely perceptible to begin sentence or paragraph was erased. old man’s words nudge and rub against with. I would open a document I’d been Then, months after I wrote to him, other things in my mind: books of magic Cursed is he that pursueth me. working on and, when I tried to pick Gilmartin wrote back: written by people like John Dee; a story up where I’d left off, what I saw didn’t by Borges where an Orcadian appears in It took a bit of reconstruction, but the seem to quite match my idea of whatever Dear Dr Smith, Buenos Aires with another mysterious phrase was there. Without a doubt. A I’d written the day before. A phrase book. payload of six words sent my way, subtly I thought I’d finished was suddenly Are you enjoying our little game? We Borges’s Orkneyman steered my smuggled inside the bulk cargo of a BTL incomplete. A plural would be sliced certainly are. Taking your magic box to the research towards that archipelago. The contribution. Gilmartin clearly knew the to the singular. Verbs were yanked from ICT department was a splendid wheeze. folk traditions of Shetland and Orkney story of the Book and was having some the middle of sentences, leaving subject They really got under your skin, didn’t share a number of themes – seal lore and fun at my expense. and object to stare out in confusion as they, with their idea that a shoddy workman weather superstitions, for example – but Before the comments stopped and they waited to be given something to do. always blames his tools. But all these pixels the Book of Black Arts is mentioned the story was removed from the front Holes appeared in paragraphs I thought and bytes you people are so fond of are so more often in Orkney than it is here. page of the Shetland Times site, Gilmartin I’d refined and tightened until they were easily lost. Don’t you agree? It’s not like Blind Borges, sitting in faraway Buenos appeared another three times, always, it as good as I could make them. the old days when words were written on proper vellum, or carefully copied onto good Aires, knew what he was talking about. seemed to me, with sly little references to I assumed there was something wrong paper in lovely dark ink. But we found our

10 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 ways back then too, as you’ll see when you document properly and knotting the rubbed away to nothing. It was gone. It in old documents. Other words I had follow the directions we are about to send. ribbon around its middle. The words was all gone. written myself. It was all here. All the were gone. That was impossible. But I slumped against the wall and closed words he had taken. Words filling every Yours, ever, etc. it was true nonetheless. I reshelved my eyes. Perhaps I fell asleep. I’m not part of my screen. G. the document and moved to the next sure. But the next thing I remember is I scroll and scroll but I can never find reference Gilmartin had given me. It the soft chiming sound my laptop makes the end. Gilmartin has taken it all. His What followed was an email with was a diary kept by a sailor in the 1850s. when an email is received. I opened the first message, his black message, consumes reference numbers to documents in the The same thing had happened there. His lid and the screen lit up. The email was everything, sucks everything in like some archives. I took my laptop and went to words had been taken away. They simply from Gilmartin: ravenous digital mouth. Even as I sit the room where the documents were weren’t where they should have been. I here, he is probably adding to his horde, kept. put the diary back in its place, looked at Dear Dr Smith, words and syllables and punctuation I switched on the lights and went my laptop for the next document, and marks funnelling into his unfathomable inside. There is a long alleyway through went to see what else Gilmartin had You will, by now, have reached the end black space. The story of me. The stories the centre of the large room, with dozens done. of the jolly itinerary we planned for you. in these documents. The story of this of shelves running away at 90° on either I don’t know how many hours I spent Don’t you enjoy a nice ramble through place. Every story that I am even a bit- side. Halfway along each of these shelves, walking past rows of shelving in the the historical highways and byways? You part character in, the black square wants each of which holds dozens of boxes gloomy light, stopping occasionally to look will also, no doubt, be asking yourself how them all. Even these shelves and these filled with hundreds of documents, is an inside another of the boxes Gilmartin had we accomplished our little vanishing trick. walls and this floor I’m sitting on. It’s all opening which lets you through to the directed me to. I could understand how Well, my good doctor S, it’s really not as disappearing. All moving towards silence. next set of shelves. I looked at the first somebody could access my computer and complicated as you might imagine. We have, Things don’t exist if they can’t be spoken number and entered the set of shelves corrupt my files, but how had he done after all, had plenty of time to practice these about and it’s all being pulled into this things. But, my dear man, you should not where the document would be. At the this? I could see what had happened but single black square. worry yourself unduly. The words are quite end I found the box he wanted me to there is no way to figure it out. Nobody Sometimes I walk. Then I sit down safe. We’re not, after all, in the business of find. has access to this room but me. mindless vandalism. History can never be and add a sentence or two to this account. The document was a rolled piece of I decided to retrace my steps. Back erased completely; it’s simply a case of who It is holding together so far. The words parchment that probably hadn’t been then, I still felt there had to be an answer gets to tell the tale. If you look back at the are staying where I put them. Sometimes looked at in years. I untied the piece of somewhere. I worked backwards through first email I sent you all those months ago, I allow myself the idea that he has taken ribbon that held it closed. Gilmartin’s list, carefully reading each you’ll find your missing words. everything he’s going to take; that the Because of the dim light and the document as I went. There were blanks maw of his black message is refusing to antique handwriting, the document was and cuts in every page. Words had been With the warmest regards, etc., your friend, accept another morsel. But then I look difficult to read. I would take it to my removed from documents I knew well. G. inside another box and find empty page desk and make a proper transcription, I Spaces opened up in texts that had been after empty page. Gilmartin won’t let a thought, but, as I scanned through the written hundreds of years ago. I kept Gilmartin’s first email was further back single letter escape. He is toying with me. text, I could see, in the crowded lines, going, trying to remain methodical. I than I had imagined. When I found it These words, the ones you are reading that there were obvious gaps. The flow kept moving through the maze of letters I opened the message. The same black now, will no doubt be sucked in like all of the ancient words, with their ligatures and diaries and deeds and accounts that window appeared but, as I stared at the the rest. But still I type. One word after and lobes and serifs, would be stopped Gilmartin had laid out for me. I walked screen, I began to see, as if deep inside another. Filling the white background. dead by a space or a hole in the middle of past miles of shelves. I don’t know how the thin wafer of the laptop’s lid, words Telling this story in the hope that it will a sentence. Sometimes there are blanks long it took. There are no windows in starting to emerge. Words floating to last long enough for someone to know in an old document, a place for a name this room and it’s easy to lose track of the surface of the screen. White words what has happened to me. But I know or a date to be added, for example, but time. fixing themselves to the blackness of it’s futile. I know, in the end, that my this was different. As had happened with Eventually I reached the sailor’s diary. Gilmartin’s message. I watched more and story will disappear, just like all the rest. my laptop, the words had been made to Sitting down on the floor, I opened the more words come. Old Scots and Norse Then, when he wants it to, it will drift to disappear. little book. There was nothing there. All words. Legal words from documents the surface of this screen, a collection of Feeling my breath and heartbeat the words were gone. I turned the pages. about land transactions. Words from white words caught in the frame of his quicken, I concentrated on rolling the Whatever the sailor had written had been diaries and letters. Words I had read deep black square. n

sgar-braghad rùbaidhean. Sin Bha làn chinnt orm gun robh thu nad an coltas a bh’ air. Bha a shùil Diefenbaker chlosach gun deò an turas seo... thug Uair na boinneagan deàrrsach a mi fiùs pòg soraidh dhut feumaidh mi bha a’ nochdadh mar fhallas fàidheanta ràdh....” air a’ chreig as fhaisge. Mean air mhean Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Chas i an t-soitheach gu grad agus leagh iad ri chèile ann an comaran a shnìomh i seachad air spreadhadh shil a-nuas mar dheòir thiamhaidh air ✯ tàirneachail. Chuala e fuaim de sprùilleach gruaidh na creige luime. Rinneadh lòn miotailte a’ dannsadh seachad air cliathaich beag sgàthanach air an talamh chruaidh. na luinge-fànais bige. Chuir seo thairis na bheag-shileadh ùr a “Ach chan fhada a-nis gus am bi lean air gu ruige bile sgoltaidh dhomhain bhàis am measg treathlaich-mara a chuid a bha toirt pòg dha bhathais? Cò leis na sinn slàn sàbhailte am broinn an luing- far na thuit e a-mach à sealladh, na eas caol dhòchasan gun stà. làmhan coibhneil a bha sgioblachadh na teasairginn a thathar a’ cur chugainn. ’S e gleansach a’ tilleadh dhan dìomhaireachd Athchuimhne. Diefenbaker. Postair plaide fo a chluais, los a chràdh bàsmhor sin a gheall iad co-dhiù. Soitheach-giùlain dho-thomhas às na dh’èirich i. Thàinig poilitigeach air post-lampa ann an Torònto. a mhùchadh? mòr spaideil. Am Beucail Tiamhaidh mar earrann dha inntinn — Esan na bhalach òg ga ghiùlan air druim A chlisge thill a mhothachadh dha. Am ainm air, a rèir coltais.” “Ciod an tairbhe a tha ann am fhuil, athar air cabhsair dùmhail. Duin’-eigin a’ broinn sloc-coilich luing-fhànais-cogaidh Loisg i sreath de pheilearan mar nuair a thèid mi sìos don t‑sloc? Am mol priobadh ris gu càirdeil san dol seachad. a bha e, a’ bladhmadh tro cheò dearg air shreanga deàrrsach de ghrìogagan dearga an ùir thu? An cuir i an cèill d’fhìrinn? lethcheann...cò leis?...lethcheann... a a dh’ionnsaigh cuspair fad às nach deach Èist rium, a Thighearna, agus dèan tròcair Lorg a theanga phàiteach an tiùba caol a cho-phaidhleit...Clara Jane! Brèagha. Cho aige a dhèanamh a-mach. orm. A Thighearna, bi‑sa ad fhear- bha stobadh an-àirde às a chulaidh-fànais. brèagha ri beatha. Ach an sin air a gruaidh “No Am Bèicear Dìomhain, is dòcha. cuideachd leam...” Dheothail e aon srùbag dheireannach àrd chumadail bha sracadh dearg a’ sileadh Rudeigin annasach mar sin — bha sinn fo Taobh thall an sgoltaidh bha mar gum dhen bhainne mhilis mar gum biodh boinneagan fala air a broilleach. ionnsaigh uabhasach nuair a chuala mi an biodh tràigh neo-chrìochnach gun mhuir. bho chìch chofhurtail mhàthaireil na “Fàilte mhòr air ais, ma-tà!” dh’èigh i. teachdaireachd. Abair ainm neònach! An Bha esan fhèin far na chaidh a leagail, air Talmhainn ud a bha e air a bhith ag Bu lèir am faochadh follaiseach na guth, eòl dhuts’ e? Fo bhratach Chanèidianaich planaid neo-aithnichte, a shùilean caogach ionndrainn cho fada. Dhùin e a shùilean ach bha i làn mire mar an ceudna ’s i fo tha e coltach. Clas Saighead. — Hei! pianmhar a’ sìor rannsachadh fhathast, gointeach ann an laigse. bhuaidh aidrèanailin a-muigh ’s a-mach. Nach e tha math fiamh-ghàire fhaicinn mar chuairtiche-cladaich leònte ri uchd a’ Cò leis na bilean blàtha cùbhraidh ud “Abair sgleog spadach a dh’fhuiling thu! a-rithist air do bhus muice. n

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 11 Together, Lit Up These Times On the Hall Floor i.m. Celia Monico A Covid-19 sequence by Paula Jennings My front door key, Paula Jennings As though someone stood on fragile ice my car key, and the cracks shot out, my Co-op loyalty card, After she died she came back running like animals in every direction. my cash card: to me, walking with a bouncy step, a small pile of contagion. waving a bottle of Cava, ready to celebrate even my anguish. The Name of the Virus Hands Sometimes now she returns I think of corvids, at Winter Solstice with candles the green-black of crows, the blue-black of rooks, They were always too big: even in adolescence in jam jars, and our feet slither and the chough near Lochinver long and skinny with prominent veins. again over the stepping stones flying upside down for the hell of it. Yet a teacher of massage once snapped at me. ‘You have beautiful hands. Use them.’ as we climb through midnight, And the blackbird (not a corvid), small beacons flickering, towards Now hands are just danger hanging off wrists. a ritual born from our bones that stays close by me as I weed, I sanitise door handles, quarantine papers. and the bones of leafless trees. lining up worms in his golden beak. My birthday cards are kicked aside to open later. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. She laughs at the stream of loss that the seasons inflict in their Permitted Daily Exercise 1 helpless turn, at the illness that Permitted Daily Exercise 2 eclipsed her scarecrow muscles I sit for a while on the graveyard wall and watch patterns of blue sky rearrange This is a beach of fragments till only her eyes and her smile as branches shift in the breeze. and here is a tiny piece of china, could speak. We chant and sing, Time has vanished. an almost perfect square frost crisping under our feet, with a pink line along the lower edge welcoming the returning light. And now time is back, with its heavy cloak; like womanly bedrock. Comfort. a rook and heron squabble. Above it, a dark blue arrow flies out from shadow, left to right.

I crouch on slippery stones, trying to decipher broken runes.

Hard Day

the self punctuating the self This Is Not A Beach with attempts to be bright Gail Brown while the ferryman rows closer and the self turns off its light This is not a beach, It is where over the dunes and across the road, my Mother grew. That is not a field, Permitted Daily Exercise 3 It is where my Grandfather tended to cattle with one arm. That is not a path, Today, in this bay of white shells, It is where the beach leads to the village. the waves are a restless dazzle That is not a wall, that tires my eyes. I’m worried It is where my Mother made porridge from childhood dreams. about the railing I touched earlier. That is not a cottage, It is where husbands and wives and siblings and pet lambs lived. There’s the sound of a small engine That road is not a road, and a boat rounds the headland. It was the route I took when I was young once, and in love. A solitary figure stands upright That track is not a track, in the stern, hand on tiller, no more than It is where my Father taught me to drive where planes flew. slender darkness against the glare. That barn is not a barn, She radiates a quiet authority as though It is the place we danced on summer nights. she’s beyond this dislocated world. Those are not just trees, I feel the sun warm on my back. That is The Planting. That is not a house, That is where I split my chin dressed up in hats and too-big shoes. That sound is not the sea, It is the murmur of all of this. That beach is not a beach and that road is not a road and that house is not a house.

12 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 here was a stirring in the world heightened; despite the flow of tears, there of birds. The swifts above the city Epicentre were remarkably few accidents. Tshrieked, finches on the pylons Later, many would describe the chattered, sparrows quarrelled in the seconds just before it broke – billowing hedgerows, warblers sang, oblivious to Story by Ian Tallach clouds to the west, a tingling in their feet, everything, and Turtle Doves mourned birds falling silent. in the Poplar trees. Three months had ✯ Westwards, it spilled over the Bosphorus passed since anyone had heard the call to and into Europe. Refugees, celebrities, prayer, and so it was the birds that woke the droves of dispossessed and royals in them. she thought. She wiped the work-surface parents they had lost, some cried for their castles – nobody escaped. Those Many in Isfahan were having and took a teaspoon from the drawer. children born into this world and others fully conscious as the wave approached nightmares and Shirin was no exception. The spoon fell to the floor. She gasped just with rage at their confinement. Many heard something like the rumble just She didn’t mind, though; she could never in horror. ‘How has it come to this? We wept for reasons they could not put into before a thunderclap, which culminated remember dreams. In daylight, they have become inured.’ She went back to words; they only knew it was implacable not in the expected boom, but rather in would vanish like a wisp of smoke. But the window. The dead man was Musa, – this wave of sorrow. those symptoms visited already on their not this morning- much as she tried to their neighbour. His beard wafted gently The tsunami reached Tehran in less eastern counterparts. Many were wrested, forget, to laugh at the absurdity of it, the in the breeze. His eyes were open. ‘He than fifteen minutes. Yasmin Hoseini howling from their sleep. Others were vision stayed. She sat up straight, fighting looks so peaceful,’ she found herself was already in the newsroom, with the wracked with sobs. They woke with vivid for breath. whispering. latest figures from around the world. dreams, but nothing to explain their tears. ‘Are you alright, darling?’ Farouk Those on life-support showed fluctuations yawned. on their monitors. At first, she didn’t recognize her In Africa, outbreaks were more husband. ‘Oh!’ she said at last. ‘Just another sporadic, and somewhat diminished in bad dream.’ comparison. Reports, at least, were not of ‘Tell me about it’ Farouk rubbed his Later, many would describe the an entirely unprecedented phenomenon. eyes. The wavelet all-but petered out as it ‘Hmmm… OK’ she cleared her throat. moved south, though not without a ‘I’m on this plane. I think you’re there seconds just before it broke sudden intensification of collective as well. The pilot says we’re going down, mourning just before the Cape. about to crash into a slum.’ She shuddered. No-one knows for certain if news of ‘No-one seems to notice – they just carry the wave crossed the Atlantic first or if it on with their in-flight meals. The noise is was the wave itself. Radio-presenters in terrible – we’re thudding into buildings, the wee-small hours began to read reports smashing everything. Inside, though, it’s Just then, the birds fell silent. Many Halfway through the word ‘pandemic’ of what was happening in countries to the calm. The stewardess is smiling. Finally, took to flight. Shirin felt a tingling in her (‘pan’demik’, in Farsi) she lost the power east. Some scoffed, on air, at the hysterical we come to rest. But there’s a trail of feet. Her legs began to shake. There was a of speech. Tears rolled down her cheeks, accounts appearing on social media, but devastation in our wake.’ welling up – pelvis to abdomen, to chest, in front of millions. This contributed to even as they did so, words abandoned ‘How did it make you feel?’ Farouk to throat. She clapped her hand over what ensued. Within an hour, the whole them and their guffaws turned into tried to sound empathic. her mouth, but out it came - a wail of country was engulfed. whimpers. The favelas of Rio de Janeiro She frowned. ‘Helpless… and guilty as desolation. She fought to hold it back, but The wave spread east into the day and São Paulo were the first communities hell.’ by the time Farouk arrived, they could already started, on through Pakistan, in the Americas to be affected, although She swung her legs out, found her already hear the weeping from another Nepal and India, China, Japan, Korea paroxysms of grief were almost slippers, doused her hands with sanitizer, flat. He held her and they cried together. (North included), Southeast Asia – none simultaneous along the eastern seaboard shuffled over to the samovar and lit the That’s how it started – first the other were spared. Many in cotton fields, tea of both South and North America, the gas. While it was warming up, she pushed floors, the building opposite, and then plantations or rice-paddies fell to their narrow isthmus separating them and the kitchen window open. on down the street, and all throughout knees. Those in the cities stopped their islands of the Caribbean. The events that ‘Have you ever heard the birds this the neighbourhood. Once it reached work and did their best to hide the followed cannot be exaggerated. loud?’ she shouted. Faraouk didn’t hear. the Kharazi Expressway it spread rapidly. upsurge of emotion, only to look out from Yes, that was the day of lamentation, She looked down at the courtyard, The whole city was convulsed with between their fingers and see that they when we wept together. And at the seven floors below. A man was lying there, lamentation. Some cried for all the were not alone. For the most part, drivers epicentre was Shirin. n on his back. ‘Too far out for suicide,’ wretched of the earth, some cried for and machine operators found their senses

hrist wid ye believe it but? as the big yin stretches back his airm wi Here ahm sittin on this here wa Caw that great bastern hatchet, does she no Cwi ma wee pal Mooney when push upwards wi baith hauns on the knife. this great bastern knicht comes clatterin Right in the fuckin thrapple. Pure dead past – wan o thae fuckers that acts like Story by Alistair Lawrie magic so it wis. A beauty. Ah couldnae the world owes him a livin. Aye an that’s hae done it better masel. The dark faced the truth o it anaw isn’t it jist? Awthin ✯ fucker’s drapt the axe an’s runnin aboot in sight his demesne – that’s whit he wi baith hauns tae his neck. Stupid cunt, caws it but aw the bastard means is that as if that’d make the blood spurt slower. his faither’s faither’s faither was better at We’d jist hopped ontae the other side o comes in a rush, teeth bared in a grin as No that it maittered. The other bastard cuttin thrapples than ony ither cunt. Aye the dyke whan this wee fucker appears wide’s a grave, in his hauns this battleaxe he picks up the axe an puts it atween the but does he no get himself doon affae an this wan had a bint wi im. Too skinny near as big’s himsel. The fucker’s roarin big fella’s shooders. Game owre. An here’s his great brute o a horse an awa wi’t in fur ma taste like – need a bit o flesh on like he wants the world tae hear whit he’s the pair o them grinnin aw owre their amang thae trees? An the look on his face. them ah aye say. Onywey the pair o them daein, foamy globs o spit aw owre his face. faces at ane anither an Mooney nods at This bastard didnae sae much look like are hardly aff their cuddies afore they’re at Mooney looks at me like as tae say, “S’this me that wiselike way he has an ah think, he wis plannin tae kill some cunt as like it like knives, ruggin at each ither’s claes. amateur hour?” Still anaw we hop up Christ they planned it this way. Ahm that somebody that wis awready tastin how There’s wan o thae queer silences grips ontae the wa tae hae a proper look jist as caught up in admirin how gallus they’ve much he wis gonnae enjoy daein it. I says the wids, ye ken like awthin’s listenin. the big fucker reaches his haun richt doon been that ah gey near forget till Mooney tae Mooney “Somethin’s up here, pal. Naethin but the odd gasp fae the twa tae grab the other cunt. An Christ s’that gies me a wee nudge an says, “Ah’ll tak Let’s hang on an hae a squint at whit this that’s screwin. Mooney an me are haudin no when he rolls owre sidieways an the the hair, Hughie.” There, starin up at me, fucker’s up tae.” Christ an wis ah no right? oor breath cos we ken whit’s comin. He bint’s lyin there wi a great muckle knife; are the big fucker’s eyes. n

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 13 Japan Poems

By Kevin MacNeil

Haiku Ink drawing by Alice V. Taylor

cofaidh dubh agus milsean - café beag socair càilear ann an Shinjuku: blàths na Dùbhlachd

black coffee and sweet pastries in a placid wee café in Shinjuku - December warmth

Summer evening, the river clear and still; two fish glide from clouds to moon

Senryu A student drifts through the poetry section, sings softly to herself.

Kōfu wandering the colourful forest, autumnal wood of gold and red and yellow, every so often i encounter a standing stone inscribed, modest, grey, rock-solid, ineffable - i should like to have made something similar of this life 11in all its weathered emptiness How to Kill a Kappa The Most Natural Word of All

Kappa: a creature from Japanese mythology, It is difficult to say farewell A Teaching and the title of a book by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. to a stranger whom I have only recently she, too, is a zen teacher The anniversary of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s death met and who sleeps when the cleaner who throws by suicide is sometimes referred to as kappaki. I am cycling, writing, dogwalking, everyone out of their rooms who speaks Japanese but not Gaelic. before they think they’re ready Akutagawa’s sketch of a kappa is like an x-ray It is certain that all things of a human mind and - languages, train stations, people - an inner voice saying are impermanent, and farewell Tully’s with professional sympathy, ought to be the most natural to ask if i want a large ‘I’m afraid we’ve found word of all. Farewell makes or small coffee something that gives us us intimate with everything. she brandishes two cups concern…’ This Farewell makes poetry real. i make my choice is how cherry blossom Farewell introduces life-as-is to turns to rags. He was not life-as-will be. Farewell’s parting and make my choice again the only one whose kappa gift is the lust for another life, a moment later mind begged ‘for someone to come one that doesn’t leave us like this. when she holds up and strangle me in my sleep.’ two cups that are I recall: ‘What love he must have different sizes lost to write so much...’ Half a Moon we each blush Akutagawa, the two of us sleepy, fluent in the it is the grin of the kappa tonight’s sky has half a moon same understanding we lack that turns cherry blossom to rags. i imagine the other half within Sleep, properly done, strangles a mind, a poem, nine hours removed, the kappa, healthy food suffocates on the other side of the world the kappa, exercise throttles the kappa, compassion asphyxiates appearing in a Japanese poem, perhaps, the kappa; understanding that shining platonically like a teardop what the mind sees it creates - this is what garrottes the kappa. Loss of love is not the worst of it.

14 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 he news announcer, Val Auden, a crack, wide enough for a grey hand to slip looked straight at the camera. The The Box is Only Temporary round and flail blindly for the catch. Erik Tcorners of her mouth twitched Magnusson continued speaking, changing as she fought to control the seventeen his position to obscure the hand. ‘We are muscles it takes to smile. By Anne Elizabeth Edwards calling these individuals ‘The Pilgrims’. ‘And finally…archaeologists in Iceland They were on a pilgrimage, a spiritual report their latest find, revealed when an ✯ journey from their home in Hofstadir ice cliff collapsed due to Global Warming to Eyarbakki, when they were overcome on Kirkjufell…also known as Arrowhead by the ice here at Kirkjufell. They have Mountain, this was used as a location for exciting. We have eleven individuals, male ‘A tent?’ Val offered. been frozen for many hundred years.’ He television series Game of Thrones.’ and female, women and men.’ He nodded The professor didn’t acknowledge the responded instinctively to rapid knocking Val paused, mention of the popular TV his head as his breath came in big misty suggestion. Maybe the word “tent” wasn’t on the door, glancing round, then back to show relaxed her mouth. A crinkly twinkle puffs. ‘They have been trapped in the ice, part of his archaeological lexicon. camera. ‘Now they are thawed out, the ice reached her eyes. Today’s headlines might for many years, many hundred years.’ ‘They have come from Hofstadir is melted, so they can continue on their have been all warfare and rampant disease Val nodded in turn. ‘Can you confirm in Northern Iceland and travelled to travelling.’ There was a loud shout, “Help” but this was frivolity; send the populace any more details professor?’ Kirkjufell on their way to Eyrabakki ‘ in any language sounds the same. off to bed with a happy thought. ‘Yes sure. They have their clothes on, Val’s smile disappeared; she wasn’t Val’s smile was back, as if she was in ‘Trapped in the ice were the so we can see what they wore on their about to repeat any of that. ‘That’s very on the joke. ‘Sounds like someone is bodies of eleven individuals. Male and bodies. And they have their tools that they interesting professor, quite precise about impatient to get out and get on with female. Complete with clothes and used for the crops and the animals and their starting point and destination.’ it! Ha Ha. Well, that was archaeologist their possessions, including tools and they have their weapons too. Knives and The professor looked behind him to the Professor Eric Magnusson of Reykjavik weaponry… Professor Eric Magnusson of the bow and arrows.’ His voice modulated closed door of the bunker. It seemed he University with a fascinating find. We Reykjavik University joins us to discuss up and down in unexpected places. could hear something that the TV sound look forward to hearing more about this. the finding. Professor, this can’t be an Val smiled widely now, displaying her recording couldn’t. ‘It’s the information Thank you, Professor.’ ordinary day for you and your team?’ pristine dentistry. ‘I hear you have reason they are giving to the translator. Names The screen returned to Iceland, where The heavily bearded professor stood to believe they were on a journey?’ have changed over the centuries, but it is there was an undignified tug of war at the door of a brutalist - architecture The Professor took his mittens out of a puzzle we can solve.’ going on with the bunker’s door. Before building. He was dressed as a caricature of his pockets to perform jazz hands. ‘They Val adopted a quizzical look. ‘Lost in the swift return to the London studio Scandinavian academia. Woolly jumper, were carrying many personal items and a translation I think. You mean there is everyone could clearly hear the professor’s tweed jacket and massive duvet coat. portable shelter made of weaving. So, we information about their journey you can last words shouted above the clamour: He paused mid foot stamp to speak to think that they were travelling from one draw from the preserved artefacts they ‘The box is only temporary!’ n camera. place to another, staying in the temporary were found with?’ ‘Yes, it’s an extra-ordinary day! It’s very blanket- house.’ The door behind the professor opened

Which benefits the ten thousand things the runners who huddle together, shaking And does not contend hands. Smiles break gaunt cheeks. Streaks - Tao Te Ching Wild Things Are of blood on hands, arms, faces from rasps of gorse. Finlay Wild - GP of Lochaber, By Adam Boggon I shower in the Shinty Pavilion, the mountain runner, renowned among the incandescence of hot water almost lean blistering my cold back - a thick coating I saw him running up Meall a’ ✯ of mud runs off my legs and the flecks of Bhuachaille in the hill race there blood on my arms are cleaned too. I was middle of the pack, covered in The wind and lightness went from me. I escapee’s clammer against my ribcage. A runner tells me he washes his shoes snot stumbled toward the finish line, solo. I want to summon the old spirit of in a stream at the bottom of his garden. He came down like a stream in flood Browning: I live in an attic flat with an irregular Later I came down as fast as I could “Pheidippides…Ran like fire once more: pentagonal door and no access to a Smeared thigh deep in bog ✯ and the space ‘twixt the fennel-field hose. So I ask my pal Andy to drop me I did not not contend And Athens was stubble again, a field off by the river which rushes through And Finlay, so far ahead, “Four minutes! Four minutes to the which a fire runs through Inverness. Neither did he start!” …Joy in his blood bursting his heart” I walk down to the water’s edge, I pace around the platform at But I’m not strong enough for that. crouch on a domed rock, and wash the Strathpeffer waiting to begin the Yet still there’s joy somewhere streaming worst of the clart off. y first hill race was Meall Knockfarrel hill race. This will be my in my blood as I chase after the thin line Looking across the river, I see no a’ Bhuachaille - mound of second. of trail: leaping ice, streams, fences, rock. fishermen out this afternoon - though Mthe herdsman. I ate too much We’re warned of ice on the course, Descending I’m growing slowly to love - often they are to be found in this stretch beforehand, felt nauseated throughout of snow and wet tree roots. We grimace having learned the trick of Jay-Z: of water. the race, and at one point had to stop still and strain our necks. I scuff at the ground “It comes from not being afraid to fall I think of a phrase from Wang Wei to let a sharp cramp pass its worst phase. I with my trainers. out of the sky” which I scribbled once in a scrapbook lost my friend Donald - slight and quick “Go!” I barrel toward the finish now, though when I was 19: and soon beyond me. Then others in the The race batters along the side of an not fast enough to keep up with Catriona field I was running with. So I crossed old railway track, then cuts diagonally Morrison, the Highland Hill Runners “The fisherman did not suspect much of the ridgeway alone. Descending through a muddy farmer’s field, then up a women’s champion. I cross the line with that paradise is hard to find.” from the high point, I gave chase after steep tussocky hillside where all runners a smile. Iain, firefighter and fellow Highland are slowed to a scramble on hands and Hill Runner, who swarmed past me. feet - grabbing fistfuls of heather, saplings I overtook him briefly before tearing and clods of earth. ✯ mid-thigh into sudden bog; scattering all I pop over the top of the all-four over the track like a spilled glass of milk. scramble and feel light enough to hack After, standing vested in the cold air, back into a run once my heart stops its steam rises from the bodies and breath of

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 15 Plana Ùr Gàidhlig A’ Ghràineag ‘s an Sgòth Joker Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Dhorch’ Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Plana Ùr Gàidhlig “Neòil dhubha na Càisge...” Joaquin Phoenix gu tur buadhmhor, Plana Ùr Gàidhli an Seòcair san fheòil fa ar comhair, Plana Ùr Gàidhl Cùisean diofraichte am bliadhna. fon daoraich le saicòsas an uilc, Plana Ùr Gàidh Dhùisg sinn, ’s b’ eòl dhuinn sa bhad e, plìonas mòr deargte air a ghnùis. Plana Ùr Gàid mi fhìn ’s mo chàirdean deilgneach. Mar Apolion a’ dol fodha san lioft Plana Ùr Gài gus an daosgar-shluagh a lèirsgrios. Plana Ùr Gà Feagal oirnn ron sgòth dhorch ud. Na dhian-lasair eireachdail phurpaidh Plana Ùr G Feagal oirnn fiù ’s ro chàch a chèile. a’ teàrnadh staidhre iutharna Dhante. Plana Ùr Shloig sinn corra cnuimhe as t-oidhche, Plana Ù Le cineamateòlas fìor bharraichte Plana Chnuasaich sinn na b’ urrainn dhuinn siod e a’ tarraing ceò air toitean, Plan de dhearcagan searca tearca seann a’ dannsadh le breaban do-chreidsinn Pla ‘s thill sinn dhar neadan seasgair fhèin. gu glòrmhor a-nuas na ceumannan Pl gu ruige trèana fo-thalamh a’ bhàis P mar bhàt’-aiseig damainte an Stucs, Pl gu aiseirigh air bonaid càr mhillte Ple Fiodh-cladaich Ealanta sa Bhaile Mhòr creachte le gràisg. Plea Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Pleas Am Fear-Fèinigs ag èirigh on luaithre, Please Dà leumadair air mo bheulaibh ach tha sgiathan eile cuideachd a’ dùsgadh Please S os cionn bàirich nan tonn. air druim balaich a’ caoineadh san duibhre Please Sh far an deach a phàrantan dìreach a mhurt Please Shu Is ann à bloigh fiodh-cladaich le fear-gunna le aghaidh-coimhich thuaisteir. Please Shut a chaidh an snaidheadh le snas. Batman air ùr-bhreith ’s a sgiathan ialtaige Please Shut G gan sgaoileadh gus ar n-iadhadh le truas Please Shut Ga Cho fuadain ris na grad-fhaclan air beulaibh taigh-dhealbh mar uaimh sheunta. Please Shut Gat a leumas cho tric às mo bheul? Please Shut Gate - THANK YOU! !” Ìm Leum an Cat Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Thog mi sèithear na aghaidh. Aiteal Bhom Rothar Leum an cat “Leig leatha!”, dh’èigh mi. Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh cho àrd ris an uinneig — rinn a’ chailleach trod rithe. Thilg i leth-phunnd ime ris a cheann, Lon-dubh ach chaill i e agus bhuail an t-ìm air a’ bhalla. air sgìtheach. Leum an cat cho àrd ris a’ mhullach — Chaidh an togalach sin a leagail Gob buidhe rinn an fhaoileag trod rithe. o chionn bhliadhnaichean mòra a-nis. mar dhroigheann. Leum an cat Ach tha smàl an ime ud Seinn cruinn cho àrd ris an itealan — fhathast air balla m’ inntinn. mar sgeachag. rinn am poidhleat trod rithe.

Leum an cat cho àrd ris a’ ghealaich — Ceistean Eascaiteòlach An t-Earrach rinn a’ ghealach lachan gàire. Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Conasg buidhe san ifrinn? Chaidh uair a thìd’ Èisg a’ leum air nèamh? a ghoid. Saoil càit Corra-ghritheach ciùin air bruaich a bheil i a-nis? gu domhainn na smaointean fhèin?

Craiceann cùl mo làimhe na meamram aosta seargte Am Foghar air na sgrìobh cleit fhaondrach geòidh Chaidh a ceiltinn a cuid sgrochail ghorm air seachran? san lios. Ach gheibh thu air ais i tha fhios.

16 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 Tobar Gun Chuman Banais Ghallta Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Deborah Moffatt

Air beulaibh uinneig mhòir, chìthear rìgh seang gun lèine Sàr-bhanais a bh’ innte, na shuidhe air sèithear chidsin gu h-àrd air muin bùird. le pìobaire ’s uisge-beatha, Na làimh aig fois tha ròs gun duilleagan mar shlat-rìoghail. am ministear na fhèileadh-beag,

Sgoil-ealain a th’ ann, is dòcha, oir siod canabhas taghta cuirm ’s ceòl ’s dannsa ann an loft an t-sabhail, le Alberto Morocco air a’ bhalla, fonn drùidhteach Hey Jude, neul stùir a’ snìomh mu chasan nan dannsair, sitrich eich ath-ioncholainnte Phòl Revìr air Highway 61. uisge-beatha a’ dòrtadh air na clàran-ùrlair,

Cha bhean na cruidhean ud air talamh cruaidh mo chridhe fòs, agus bha sabaid ann, mar bu chòir, oir chan eil annta dhomhs’ an-dràst ach mac-talla fad’ às is fann, (cha robh banais riamh gun sabaid nam faileasan dìomhain air tobar domhain gun fhuaim gun chuman. bheag no mhòr), ’s deòir gu leòr

mun robh glasadh air an latha, athair bean na bainnse air mhisg, A’ Chuileag màthair fear na bainnse air a sàrachadh, Màrtainn Mac An t-Saoir stuirc air an t-seann fhìdhlear B’e a’ chuileag a ghlac m’ aire a bha ainmeil na linn, ’s e a’ cluich ged a bha i cho beag air The White Heather Club, mas fhìor, is gun aice ach i fhèin na dannsa, na mire a’ chlann bheag a’ fàs cànranach, os cionn a’ chuirp. am màthraichean a’ fàs diombach, na deugairean a’ fàs mì-fhoighidneach Samh chan fhaighinn ach sin a’ chiad smaoin oir cha b’ e ach banais àbhaisteach nuair a leag mo shùil sìos a bh’ innte, gun chleas-teine a dh’ ionnsaigh a ghobhail; no fuaran-teòclaid an e nach deach a ghlanadh bho chaochail e mar a chunnaic iad air a’ bhogsa, no ’n e gun do chac agus o! Am faca tu bean na bainnse e e fhèin ann an a gul ’s a’ gal air cùlaibh an t-sabhail? saoghal nan neo-bheò, a mhuinighinn air a trèigsinn gun sgeul air athair no a mhàthair - air holiday ’s dòcha – Eadar na Beàrnan is gun ann dheth-san ach Deborah Moffatt cnap fuar de dh’ fheòil a ghrodadh is a leannraicheadh Àm a bh’ ann anns an robh an taigh seo mar an còrr làn daoine, a latha ’s a dh’oidhche, sgath mòr sam bith sònraichte mu dheidhinn a-nist làn còmhraidh ’s ciùil, ach seach nach ann buileach ‘an dùil’ ’s bhithinn ag èisteachd ris an t-sàmhchair a bha a bhàs nach fhaodadh neach san t-sreath eadar gach facal, a’ feitheamh ris a làmh a chur air a’ cholainn reòthte rag sin agus a ràdh na beàrnan beaga ‘Bha thu 88 a bhodaich; ach a-nist chan eil.’ eadar na ceistean ’s na freagairtean, a’ faicinn an doille eadar an sùil ’s an cridhe miannach, ’s fairichinn an ceòl mar dhriùchdan mìn air m’ aodann, ’s bheirinn mi greim air gach nì nach robh ann – an t-sàmhchair ’s na beàrnan, an doille ’s am miann, na driùchdan binn, ’s a-mach leotha aig briseadh an latha, far am bithinn a’ togail mo dhàin ann an solas blàth na maidne.

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 17 The lantern bearer Old friends families emerging Richie McCaffery Richie McCaffery squinting into the light of a brave new world For Bonfire Night we got a class of kids We go out and wander drunkenly, with catastrophic hairstyles to make lanterns out of sticks, paper and glue. aimlessly. We talk, laugh and sutured scalps I even made my own, a huge lopsided angel and remember none of it. for a procession through town. bearded ladies We empty bottles to fill the day baldy children That night an old woman in the crowd and swim naked in the cold was so taken by the lanterns she wanted one meandering rivers of our lives. cartoon-like tufts of her own to carry, so I gave her mine. exploding out at Our love for each other extravagant angles She lit up more than the little candle is three-legged, like a cracket and irreparable damage she carried and held up high for milking that always finds its level. done to the national soul for miles through the evening. Years of school and university *** At the end, I said she could keep the angel have taught us less than nothing. but her face twisted. She dragged it away, But we know where the blackbird we watch Death in Venice thinking of finding a place to dispose of it which features an epidemic before her return to darkness and metered light. likes to perch to sing everyone wants to ignore when the blackbird’s silent and not there. it slunk from the east a human feast Routine Richie McCaffery Venice awash Time, please with generous sloshes is setting the table each morning Richie McCaffery of milky disinfectant for breakfast. We have two old mugs – At long last I wrote to the widow beautiful stinky canals 1970s Hornsea ‘Saffron’ pattern of a dead poet, like she’d asked. burning piles of elegant rubbish thanks to your eye for retro design. I edited her husband’s Collected Poems. the body count One of the mugs is chipped, covered A reply came back from her son. beginning to mount in glazing cracks the tea’s stained. She’d been dead two years herself. a black tear I temporised until it became forever. running down the side The other is as good as new. of Dirk Bogarde’s corpse-face When I do breakfast you get Time’s a curious thing. A British invention, perhaps, for its insistence on queuing art drained the ‘good’ one. When you do it, days, years, generations. The odd coincidence of soul or heart you give yourself the damaged one. elbowing its way in while we stand there out of control disease It’s always like that, our routine. confident of who is ahead and behind us. is bad for business Each morning, the thirst’s there. Then we turn, already speaking, and it’s someone else. it will totally bugger-up the economy

bury it under Errata Two poems from Coronaworld the time-worn carpet Richie McCaffery Graham Fulton Tadzio’s slinky bum Spent all day proofreading. hair salons silhouetted against the sun All those hours to track down have been ordered as he turns into a Greek statue a handful of typos. to close immediately along with bookmakers a malevolent minstrel I’ve scoured miles of fields and pubic waxers sticking out his tongue and woods and never seen an error unless it was human-made. a septuagenarian trim is not considered essential Perhaps we invented the concept to the continuance of life and went looking for it unlike tins of prunes anywhere and everywhere and mushy peas

except in ourselves, bottom rolls disguising the fact scented soap that none of us will admit. there will be some reckless experiments carried out over the next few months with clippers and colourant

18 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 To find The Tinkers’ Heart Scottish Geology and use, its carvings clear, now full Robin Munro Robin Munro of sea-worn amber that I found upon a beach in Latvia. The Rest and Be Thankful will be no more Land massed like fantasy: when the stones of the Cowal are trampled o’er. ‘Avalonia broke away from Gondwana, collided with Baltica Where is the Heart? and drifted towards Laurentia.’ Where do I start? Sight I like the concept: Kenneth Steven ‘Leave us be’ I hear dead travellers say a splinter of Appalachia ‘tak your hurry’, better by far our straggling twin The strangeness of that sudden rumble the paths of horses smashed into Europe coming from nowhere yesterday late. than of cars and such imposters. landed here. I ran out and stood watching the faraway threatening skies, I have no horse. I had a dog, These truly were our Arrochar Alps but around us an eerie brightness – borrowed from our origins back in the ‘Caledonian Orogeny’. the stillness that comes before the storm. to help me know Shrinking, I concede, The first flicker – a blink of silver, the slow approach through Glendaruel, through passing climates of confusion. seconds later the answering thunder. I went in and watched from the window, North where three roads used to meet, Down here on Rothesay front, looked out and into the distance – a tryst of old Argyll. a tourist signpost shows the lochan like a light blue stone Quartz stones set back ‘The Highland Boundary Fault’. brooched in the tweed of the moorland. from the glaur of grazing, high enough I place a foot on either side, The swans in the mirrored water, to look down on smaller Inverary. face up to our provenance: so impossibly white to the eyes – Their Loch Fyne view universal, gone astray. like the remains of snow after winter, wide as history, held in the head, carvings that dipped and bent; shared on the tongue together yet ever themselves – of all who travel, join, heads stretching into the west, take their leave, return or not. The Box into the rain that came from the silence, Antonia Kearton the veil that swallowed the day. Their metaphor of quartz into the longing landscape It’s hardwood, warm, mid-brown, and something of ourselves. beautifully hinged, just shorter The heart? than my octave-and-two handspan. Necropolis Kenneth Steven I look over sea lochs of memory. I chose it when my grandmother died. Where do I start? I thought it had lived forever The slow creak of the gate clangs – in her house, holding her cigarettes, I stand beyond the swish-swish of the cars, the heart’s drum calm at last. near the cabinet of wonders Settlement - the seahorse, the book smaller The sun emerging like a hedgehog from the mist, Robin Munro than my fingernail – or was it trees sculpted out of silence; wintered in the distance, made of grey. Across the Balnakailly Burn lined with silver foil and filled from the old Wood of Rue, with fudge, brought out each Sunday Breeze comes and ruffles through the ditches; the Farm of the Forest after lunch? I am uncertain. the sun is snowballed under cloud is a rickle of broken stones as rain in bits and pieces stings. freckled with lichen. I’ve memories of both, and now no way of knowing. Some stones are toppled; the names of those beneath Outlines of lives. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. all smooth and rubbed away – A mother’ mother sat here they do not matter any more, for no one comes in her final year, My grandmother came from Latvia a grandchild in her first. before the war, with one to crouch down close beside with candles, suitcase: a summer visit. to wait for dawn with them and pray So many might have been our fathers their souls have passed into a better light. went. Bracken in their stead. She met my grandfather, Words and photographs. the war broke out, she stayed. Homeless men creep here instead like moles Interpretation. Recreation. The box cannot have come with her - and cuddle up beneath the lintels, snug – the living seeking succour from the dead. Are there, in the old dog’s scenting, why choose it, even if she could any diluted traces of the vanished? have known that this one case They curl inside these caves, carve out a quiet Duty bound, he adds his information. was all she’d have from home? to sleep untroubled through the hours of dark.

Neither of us able to foretell I gave it to you, thinking And in the morning, if they are blessed, what of us remains of your affinity with wood, the deer come close to scent their breath in this or any other land. not knowing then that doing and rusty-furred fox-cubs yap and scrabble.

so meant it was always This is a place made somehow more alive mine. We have it still. than all the world beyond. It’s on the bookcase, dark with age

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 19 Ceum air Cheum / Step by Step

An interview with Christopher Whyte by Jennifer Morag Henderson

hristopher Whyte’s poetry collection Ceum air Cheum / Step Cby Step was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Poetry Book of the Year in 2019, and is currently shortlisted for the Best Poetry Book (Derick Thomson Prize) 2020 by the Gaelic Books Council. It is an audacious book in many ways, from the subject matter to the language it is written in, covering a wide-ranging variety of subjects from the politics of language and translation to suicide and child abuse. Sharp and unafraid, it contains poems about the author’s difficult life experiences, and his writing in Scotland and in Gaelic – including a sometimes difficult relationship with Sorley Maclean – all set within a European context. It is a collection that has taken almost 20 years to come together, a cumulative group of experiences that have been thought about for a long time. JMH: One of the things that struck me about the poems was their format: first of all the fact that this is a book of ‘longer poems’. I don’t think this is a very common format for contemporary Gaelic poetry, am I right? CW: The most common format for poetry in Gaelic has for some time been shortish poems in relatively free verse, Christopher Whyte relaxing in Italy. often topical or diaristic in nature. So you are right, the poems in Ceum air Cheum hugely influential for the development of when they buried you, writing in metre. I am pretty sure that tend to swim against the current in this the rest of the poem. my presence that day was not needed. … rhythm and metre evoke in the reader respect. One element that fascinates me is or listener a psychological portrait of the JMH: The poems are very rhythmical: running the sentence structure “against” Nuair a thèid mi gu tuath person who is talking and will help them smooth and wonderful to read out loud. the metre in a constantly varying Chan fhaic mi ur gnùis evaluate how trustworthy this person is, The rhythm must come early on in your counterpoint. What I mean is, not having Air a dealbhadh fad bearradh nam beann ud. as well as the balance between emotion conception of the poem – can you speak the beginning and ending of a sentence Cha robh iad nam shealladh and thinking behind what they say. Two about how you start to write – with coincide with the beginning and ending Nuair a thìodhlaic iad sibh, poems in Ceum air Cheum dealing with a word, an idea, or with a line and a of lines but rather occur halfway, or one Cha b’fheumail mo làthair-s’ an uair sin. …” particularly awkward and disturbing rhythm? third, or two thirds of the way through. subjects - ‘Sealladh san Duibhre’ and CW: Rhythm is indeed fundamental My image of that is a cat gradually settling JMH: In “A Face That Won’t Be ‘Aig Uaigh Nach Eil Ann’ - observe the because all the poems are written in down into a comfortable position. The Etched Along the Crest of the Cuillin” relevant metrical rules very strictly. What metre, often very strict. This counters end of the cat’s tail corresponds to the last [the poem about Sorley Maclean], I like matters is the metrical regularity giving the apparently “non-poetic”, “prosaic” words of the sentence and the full stop to how you make the distinction between the reader the assurance that, however subject matter, asserting that what you its tapering conclusion. the poetry and the man. In today’s ‘cancel extreme the experiences and emotions are reading is very definitely poetry, if of The poem addressed to Sorley culture’ people want to know so much being discussed, someone retains overall an unusual kind. My characteristic metre Maclean is a virtuoso piece in changing about the internal life and thoughts of the balance and control. Things are not going is an adaptation to Gaelic of English metres throughout. The opening section writers they admire, and sometimes seem to get out of hand, and overall the situation “iambic pentameter”. imitates, in an ironical way, a traditional not to be able to like any of their work if is safe. However daunting and unsettling I find it very hard to say where a poem song metre, which of course comes over they disagree with any viewpoint. the exploration being undertaken, a “starts”. A novel can start with a powerful as odd without the melody, while the CW: The phrase “cancel culture” is guiding hand is there for them to hold image, or a situation, or the relationship last is cast in “amphibrachs” – groups of completely new to me. I myself see no onto. That hand is represented by strict between two people. At times a poem three syllables – of which the central one real need for public exposure of the metre. can be launched into the air on the carries the stress, with four in each line. author in readings and in interviews. Take JMH: Some of your poems talk basis of translating someone else’s poem That worked surprisingly well and also the case of Elena Ferrante, whose identity about some highly personal experiences, – borrowing and then adapting that felt appropriate in a poem from one poet is still far from being clear. That has done and I sometimes think that forming particular tone of voice. to another: her books no harm. Generally I am ill at difficult experiences into poems, into Probably for me a poem starts with “A Face That Won’t Be Etched Along The ease when reading my own work in front art, makes them understandable, easier to a tone, an angulation or intonation of Crest Of The Cuillin / of an audience. It is something I have to cope with in some ways. They become the voice, a way or a possibility of saying Gnùis Nach Dealbhaichear Air Bearradh steel myself to do and can feel unseemly formalised and controllable – I had felt something. Deciding on the metre takes A’Chuilithinn and inappropriate. A breach of decorum. what you said about the metrical rules time. My image for that is cutting a piece After all, reading a book or a poem is in those poems. But publishing these of cloth at the point where it falls from the When next I go north quintessentially a private experience that personal experiences can be a different edge of the table. The choice you make I won’t see your face cannot always or easily be shared with experience to writing about them, as about where to end the first line will be etched along the crest of those mountains. other people. people can critique not only writing I didn’t see them Returning to the points I raised about style, but content. I wondered if you

20 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 would want to say anything about your poems can be published in Gaelic alone paced up and down inside the cage of English was the way it did seem to take Gaelic experience writing and publishing ‘Aig and will encounter a competent and … somewhere new: I feel that Gaelic is the Uaigh Nach Eil Ann / At A Grave That appreciative audience in that language. medium, but not the whole message - the Is Not There’? Unfortunately, such is far from being the … Bha mi duilich air ur sgàth, point of the poems is not solely that they CW: When you ask about reactions to case. Accompanying the “real” poem with is sibh gu dìorrasach a’dèanamh brochain are in Gaelic. You are using Gaelic as a the publication of ‘Aig Uaigh’, it brings translations is a matter of necessity. At the nas tain’ dhe bhrochan bha tana mar thà, working European language and in a way home to me the unbelievable pressure same time, I am certain that translations that gets you to the heart of community: on people who have been abused to enrich and expand the original they are toirt ruaig air sgàile sgàil’, ’s an neach a thilg people, not just nature, or a fixed point in keep silent, even after they have spoken working from. Poems benefit from being e the landscape and history. out. Of three siblings in my family, only translated! They are never quite the same siubhal ann an làinnireachd a dheòntais, CW: That is spot on, and very my sister chose to refer to it, in hostile, afterwards. Translation opens up and an àite eile, dol an seòladh eile, perceptive. The language in which it suspicious and unsympathetic terms. It discovers possibilities in them that might fhad ’s a tha sibh, no feadhainn dhibh co-dhiù, is written cannot always be the most was a milestone for me when I realised otherwise be overlooked. That insight ceumnachadh sìos is suas an cèids’ na Beurla significant aspect of a poem. My gambit that if the other family members refused strikes me as profoundly alien to the …” - and my gamble! - has always been to to discuss the matter of my abuse, that by literary world in Britain today, ultimately treat Gaelic “as if” it were just another no means indicated they did not believe so hostile and indifferent to translation, JMH: I was particularly struck by modern European language, even me. Quite the reverse! One friend said isolated in the beleaguered fortress of the poem “To a Young Scottish Poet”. though that is not really the case. That immediately: ‘Oh, I wish you hadn’t told English, which seeks only minimal I found it extraordinary at first that a sets me apart from a lot of Gaelic writers me that!’ while at least two others chose interchange with other languages of translator wouldn’t know the language today, almost in a compartment of my to talk about how tough it was for them Europe or of the world. In this respect, they are translating from, but when I own. Reading other European poets handling the news, rather than about writing in Gaelic, and being forced to thought about it I realised I had read in the original language, and featuring how it had been for me as a child coping seek out translators, represents an asset. poems that were done this way. There’s a quotations from them above my Gaelic with the abuse. When I began publishing poetry quote I’ve read from Douglas Dunn that texts, is one element in this approach. It’s “At A Grave That Is Not There / in the late 1980s, it was practically “only an indifferent poem gets lost / In not something I do casually! Aig Uaigh Nach Eil Ann obligatory to supply an English translation its translation”. When and how did you One danger with writing in an which could appear alongside. For me, start working with Niall O’ Gallagher? underprivileged or threatened language …If someone were to ask what sort of face translating a poem into English damaged CW: Niall O’Gallagher was an is what I call “reification”. You are only evil has, I wouldn’t say, the face my relationship to it, as if someone had outstandingly brilliant student in his year permitted to write about certain subjects - of a head of state, of some general inserted a foggy plate glass window at Glasgow and I had the privilege and the language itself, the community which who has a whole army at his command, between me and it. That disturbed me and pleasure of being one of his teachers in uses it, their preoccupations and concerns, nobody famous, not the murderer upset me. It also worried me that magazine the Department of Scottish Literature. whereas – under normal circumstances – editors and prize committees regularly He approached me with the proposal language can and should be used to deal featured in the newspapers, so no-one made - and still make! - judgements on of putting some of my poems into with any topic whatsoever. can possibly doubt the crimes that he the basis of the facing Engish version, English and I was delighted to accept. People using Gaelic should not be committed, without having any qualms about not I did, however, warn him that close subject to limitations which are not but rather a face that’s banal, everyday, bothering to learn Gaelic so they could association with an out gay man on the imposed on writers in English or in such as the man that sells the morning evaluate the poem itself. I have to confess Scottish literary scene risked producing a German. It is rather like behaving “as if” papers, that, when I translate someone else’s degree of “guilt by association”. Even if Scotland were already what so many of or else the one remarking to his neighbour, poetry into Gaelic, or English, or Italian, homophobia can no longer be expressed us hope it can soon be - an “ordinary” the translation tends to oust the original as uninhibitedly as in the recent past, it smaller European state like Denmark while they are standing in a bus stop queue, and take its place. Naturally I don’t like is still a significant factor in how people or Luxemburg or Slovenia. And with how unpredictable the weather is. this happening when the original is my respond to and evaluate poetry such as creative literature, acting “as if” has a way Or your own face, maybe. My mother’s face. own and I am also the translator! my own. Niall took my concerns on of almost magically making things come … For more than a decade, Niall’s board, rolled up his sleeves, and went true. Literature has the power to bring work as translator of my poems was ahead, with excellent results. into being realities which did not exist …Ma dh’iarrar orm gu dè a’ ghnùis bhios aig fundamental. If he had not stepped in JMH: I am a little surprised to hear before. an olc, cha fhreagrainn gur h-i ghnùis aig to provide English versions, I do not those concerns – about him being Concerning the old debate about ceannaird think most of them would have appeared associated with a gay man in the Scottish who Gaelic belongs to, and who has stàit, air neo cinn-feadhn’ àraidh is arm in print. I used my own translations in literary scene. Do you still think this is the right to use it, I have settled on a fo smachd, no gnùis sam bith tha ainmeil, Ceum air Cheum when these had already the case nowadays? I can see that it was very straightforward rule of thumb. A eadhon an tè aig murtair nochdas anns been published, and also with two poems an issue in the past, but I felt that attitudes language belongs to anyone who uses it. – “To a Young Scottish Poet” because had changed? What could be simpler or more clear? na pàipearan-naidheachd, is nach fhaod this polemic against so-called “relay CW: I would say that being a gay I am so glad to hear that you were teagamh translation” is pretty barbed, and “At a writer continues to be problematic in following the Facebook posts, and that a bhith aig duin’air aingidheachd a Grave That Is Not There” because of the Scotland today, even for those coming you enjoyed reading them. The whole ghnìomh’, extremely personal nature of the message from a younger generation than my own. idea came from my dear friend here in ach gnùis tha dìreach coitcheann, cumanta, being conveyed to my mother. Homophobia is still there. It has merely Prague - where I am writing from now gnùis an fhir a bhios a’ reic nam pàipear, “To AYoung Scottish Poet, Who Wrote gone underground, evading direct - Petra Poncarová, who won a prize for mar eisimpleir, no chanas ri a nàbaidh That It’s An Exceptional Occurrence expression. her translation of Tormod Caimbeul’s When Someone Knows The Language JMH: One of the reasons I wanted Deireadh an Fhoghair, done directly from mar a tha an t-sìde caochlaideach, They’re Translating From / to do this interview was that I thought Gaelic, and who is a regular contributor is iad a’feitheamh air a’bhus sa chiuda. Gu Bàrd Òg Albannach, A Sgrìobh Gur some of the notes you’ve been putting to STEALL. I took a break from weekly No do ghnùis fhèin, is dòcha. Gnùis mo E Suidheachadh Àraid A Th’ Ann Nuair on Facebook recently have been so postings over the summer but am mhàthar. …” A Bhios Neach Eòlach Air A’ Chànain Às interesting: they come up on my feed planning to resume them in September. A Bheil E ’G Eadar-Theangachadh” in amongst other totally unrelated posts JMH: Some of the translations in the and sometimes I’m not sure what I’m book are by Niall O’Gallagher, and I … What I felt for you was pity, reading at first - whether it is fiction, or know that you don’t always translate your diligently employed making soup an essay, your own thoughts from now, or This interview was conducted via Gaelic work and have strong opinions thinner still than what you had to start with, something from earlier, or the thoughts email and Skype, and has been edited for about whether or not Gaelic poems of a character. I enjoy the engagement length and clarity, with the permission of should be published with an English busily pursuing a shadow’s shadow. that’s needed with each post. One of the interviewee. translation. Can you speak a bit more Whoever cast it moved, brilliant, unshackled, those notes was on ‘Discovering you [Christopher Whyte reads a further about this? Far away, heading for somewhere else are not English’: these questions about extract from “At A Grave That Is Not CW: Ideally, there ought to be a while you, or some of you at any rate, Scottish identity are not new, but what I There” online at the Northwords Now situation where even long and demanding found fascinating about Ceum air Cheum website. Ed.] n

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 21 Some poems from northern seas

By Mandy Haggith

Easterly

This wind is patchy and inconsistent. It throws punches loaded with rain, shoves the boat roughly over the water, rucking up waves in breaking bunches.

Then it pauses, lulls

long enough for us to lose way, rolling awkwardly in wait for its next fit of enthusiasm, its next bit of belligerence.

It has made a mess of the sea but there’s something childlike, almost loveable, about the moody scruffiness of its path.

Its holes are made by hills. The shapes of the Assynt mountains are stamped all over it. Svalbard walrus group. Photo: Kenny Taylor You wouldn’t want to wrestle with a walrus

Bow-head whale Cos his head’s like a dustbin with three foot tusks He’ll kiss you to bits with his suction lips Two humps of peace on an ocean of ice: His whiskers’ll tickle till you lose your grip head bump – a modest mountain, His penis bone’s like a walking stick behind it a ridge. And he won’t feel your punches, his skin’s so thick. He is two tonnes of blubber and built like a bus, A flow as the head rises, No you wouldn’t want to wrestle with a walrus a gentle puff of exhaled air, a murmuring blow. He farts like a rocket and he belches pepper spray He flaps his flippers like he’s practicing for flag day Among the congregation He’ll scratch you with his nails if you try to pin him down we might as well have said ‘Amen’ Or push you down the sandy beach and roll you till you drown to the emergence of a deity. If you grab him by the flippers he will squash you with no fuss No, you wouldn’t want to wrestle with a walrus. Cameras and glasses of devotion rise in reverence He can hang out under water, he’s a deep sea diver fall in supplication. He’s like jaws with claws, has no sense of humour either He looks kind of cuddly when he gives you a wave You make no popish gesture, But taking him on is neither big nor brave merely nod your huge head, He’s got 20 of his pals lying out there on the isthmus return to the deep. No, you wouldn’t want to wrestle with a walrus.

Big behemoth fellow traveller on the whale-road we greet you. Ice floe

How many years have you swum Deep below, a whale dives at your monk-like pace deeper than light, among this ice? deeper than time. What do I know? You could teach us things we will never learn Huge baleen, tonnes of krill, as long as we keep scurrying on, rise, blow, slow, slow fin, blow, dive below. burning, What do I know? burning. Thinning sea ice, plastic, PCBs, bottom-trawlers, fishing quotas, oil-drilling, sonic blasts, submarines. What do I know?

22 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 Strathconon The Wye Athin Chynges Ian A. Olson Edith Harper

When you took the autumn to London Daunderin alang the beach makin siccar And left me to burrow into winter tae haud awa fae the wee purpie scalders – I said they could pack up Strathconon an amethyst necklace strung oot alang the tideline. Box up the birch and the larch Sunsheen glisters like gowd oan the waves. Return the swans on Achonachie Nae soond bit the saft sough o the sea. And while they were about it A guff fae a tangle o seaweed They could empty the Curin dam. that Ah kin taste oan ma saut-stung mou.

There was, after all, no point A at eence a stushie gets up fan boorach o seagows In the upkeep of Torr Achilty stairts tae fecht oer a puckle fish or breid. In preserving the pines of Achlorachan Syne, ae gow flees up an awa, a bittock in his yella neb And sustaining the pass of Scardroy. an the hale murtherous clamjamfrey gies chase. No need to retain Inverchoran The skraich o the gows cairried oan the Atlantic win For the sake of a handful of eagles maks me think o the greetin o exiles, drien fae this lan, Or maintain the forest of Meinich fa traivelled athort the braid streetch o the ocean. For the amusement of the deer. Ahint this strand lies the lan they left Last night when I entered Strathconon fan it wis gien oer tae hedder an yowes. The birches were naked and mourning An och, thon wis a dowie time. The larch trees stripped and shivering Weel, the hedder’s aye there bit the yowes are lang gane, The pines smothered in sleet. an a the hooses an steadins nocht bit a rickle o stanes. By Dalbreac the river was silenced Noo the lan is hame tae groose an peesie-weeps, From Craig Ruadh the deer were uplifted towerists, waukers an midgie-ridden lochans. The dams preserved in the ice The mountains blacked out by the snow. Lorna Moon born Strichen 1886 Have You Lost Your Tongue? died New Mexico 1930 Karen Lesley MacDonald Kay Clive

Yes miss, the cat took it. Lorna Moon, she liked the ring of it, The cat took my tongue, transformed from Nora Helen Wilson Low. ran away with it Names need to have a resonance, a fit long before I was born. and this could take her where she yearned to go. On field after battlefield “Shameless”, they called her in the staid wee town, it took a licking until beat. between the Buchan farmland and the sea, It was hung out to dry, in tatters writing about the folk she’d always known on the edge probing pretence, revealing oddity. of a clattering cliff. The library refused to stock her book - The sheep on one side of the wall, the quine whose scripts had dazzled Hollywood me silent on the other. was shunned in Strichen. They could not overlook I was pushed and pushed that searing light that showed more than it should. until my feet were wet. I had to learn how to fish, She planned a journey home when gravely ill, sink or swim. her ashes in a “trochie”, back to Mormond Hill.

In school my father was taught how not to speak. But I remember In Answer To Your Question About Poetry how it appeared in a swear Sharon Black or a tune hummed under breath. for Tim How he unwrapped it gently back North visiting the old lady. You know that feeling when you hold your breath Always in her shawl by the fire. to stop a fit of hiccups Tea and Pan Drops. and your chest hurts and your head swims He offered it to old Colin along the road. like that time you dived from the highest board It flew between them like a songbird. to please your dad He volleyed it with mischief and fighting for the surface your lungs were ready to explode at his sister, at his brothers. you weren’t sure which way was up It ricocheted off the old walls or if you’d even make it and the only thing that mattered over my head and out the door. was heading for the light and finally you reach it I ran to catch it you inhale and the dive-board but too late, much too late. and the trying to make him proud and the hiccups are all gone and you’re just there floating?

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 23 id ye ken Roy Rogers took Wee Tam could be seen quaffing his pint, ma daughter?’ said Wee Tam. his head thrown back, his scraggy neck ‘DWith a flick of the wrist he muscles working hard. sent a metal beer keg spinning across the Later, in the afternoon, I queued in brewery courtyard. the brewery office for my wage packet. ‘Oh, is that right?’ I said, catching the These were handed out by a pretty girl keg from which steam still rose. Straight- with long red hair. Her coarse banter armed and with a roll of my shoulders I with the other workers contrasted with swung it onto the gleaming stack behind her fine-boned looks. But when I stepped me and tried to ignore Wee Tam’s frown up, I wondered if the packet contained at my tone. I couldn’t help it. Each my final wages because she grew quiet morning he made the same complaint and handed it over with an expression of about the film cowboy from the Fifties. sadness. Perhaps I had offended Wee Tam By evening, his mind had been wiped irreversibly? Then she winked. So that’s clean by the dregs he shook into the pint what I look like, I thought. I walked away glasses that were filling above the steam holding my wage packet and grinning machine. like a fool. All that summer I’d been working What was in Wee Tam’s head I would in Campbell, Hope and King’s, the never find out, but that night I realised oldest brewery in Edinburgh. I’d failed that it was the first time I’d been properly my university exams so I wasn’t going sober for weeks. I climbed the winding back. It was a watershed in my life. My stairs to my flat, cooked a nourishing maiden aunt had become my guardian meal and considered the rich flavours of after my parents had died in a skiing this new life. Later on I lifted the wooden accident when celebrating their tenth flute I’d bought from the old man in the wedding anniversary. A lecturer in pub with my first wages. With only one History at Aberdeen University, she had term of recorder lessons at school, it made it clear her interest in me, and her took me two weeks to get a serviceable continued support for me, was based on embouchure. A month later I had a set my academic success. I’d worked hard of jigs. at retaining her affection throughout As the summer continued, I noticed childhood, surviving all the angsty tests that in good weather the red-haired girl since then, but my lack of commitment took her lunch down into the courtyard had been exposed at last. The shock to sit on one of the barrels where the sun I felt was in proportion to the fear I’d was strongest. One afternoon I strolled accumulated over the years. After seeing over with my lunch-box, and mustering the results on the noticeboard, that night a smile which I hoped did not show my I wandered from one pub to another, desperation, I sat down. Roy Rogers and Gail Davis. Creative Commons. their windows splashing gaudy light on ‘Ye’re no fuckin’ shy,’ she said. the pavement, their doors an invitation I couldn’t think of what to say. Then, to oblivion. by some divine intervention I discovered Some of the pubs were in the Cowgate, the fear inside me had a tap and by some that sunken canyon which threads its strange alchemy it was possible for me to way through the Old Town and past the turn it. ‘I’m shy with everyone else,’ I cobbled slopes of the brewery. Near my said. ‘You must bring out the best in me.’ flat was one where musicians gathered Wee Tam and Roy Rogers She was drinking from her bottle of to play jigs and reels and sing a few songs. lemonade and her laughter made the The music was jaunty, carefree, and I fizzy liquid go down the wrong way. On especially liked when an old man turned D.B. MacInnes clearing her nose and mouth and wiping up with a baroque flute. The bark and her eyes, she looked me up and down. fat tones from the ebony cylinder made ✯ ‘There’s more to ye than fuckin’ meets me want to dance. Later in the night the eye, posh boy.’ more wistful airs were played, and in the Our sly teasing continued each time first epiphany of that summer it struck we met. It seemed like an act of intimacy me that beyond Hip-hop, Rap or Pop, that we shared our lunch-boxes; she was beyond even the refined output of the intrigued by my tuna and cucumber Conservatoires, here was beautiful music punched his card in the clock and now middle-aged, with the dusty flat cap and sandwiches, I craved the caramel wafers played by ordinary people. was doubled over laughing, his scrawny overalls of a plasterer, the other younger which her mother seemed to tip into her One night I sat in my usual corner, pint arm stretched out, finger pointing at the and smarter, perhaps an office worker or box by the half dozen. One day, we had in hand, drifting on the river of melody, lunch box. bank clerk. Both were drunk. Out on the traded happily again when I said, ‘Wee when I noticed the old man was playing a ‘Whit a brass neck,’ he said, ‘Ach, I’ll street the young man fell down and with Tam and Roy Rogers, eh?’ new flute, the same dark wood, but with take him. Since we got they Belhaven difficulty was helped up by the other, who ‘What d’ye mean?’ extra silver keys. The old one rested on pubs, I cannae keep up.’ That was Wee in turn fell down, his cap falling from his ‘Well, all this stuff about Roy Rogers the table in front of him. Propped over it Tam, whose wishes held a mysterious head. The ruinous choreography went on taking his daughter?’ was a ‘for sale’ sign. I swallowed my beer sway throughout the brewery. and on, until I couldn’t take any more. I She frowned. ‘Aye, what about it?’ and fished in my pockets for change. Drink was strengthening its grip whirled round and headed back the way ‘Was he riding Trigger at the time?’ I Money was becoming a problem, but I on me and now I could afford it. The I came. Later, I thought about what I had laughed at my joke, but she didn’t join couldn’t face going back to my flat just brewery issued a pint of export strength seen. These men are hardened drinkers. in. yet, so I ordered another drink. ‘stagger’ each lunchtime which made the Been at it for years, I told myself. ‘It’s true,’ she said. By the following week I’d grown so afternoon fly, but by five o’clock there One day I went to the canteen porter ‘Really?’ desperate for a job, I turned up at the was a thirst for more and that was when as usual for my pint of ‘stagger’, but got ‘Aye, it was in the papers. My mum brewery with my lunch-box under my the pubs opened. One night I wandered a shake of the head. I said: ‘What’s going told me. The cowboy and his missus arm. The foreman shook his head: ‘Good down into the Cowgate in a mood of on?’ visited Edinburgh, went to the orphanage try, son, but we don’t take on students.’ exploration. Two men staggered from the The man just shrugged his shoulders and fell for her.’ Nearby, a tiny skelf of a man had just doors of the first pub I came to. One was and nodded towards the courtyard where ‘Wow. She was in an orphanage?’ I

24 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 was rattled by this and said the first thing Rogers came to town. Aye and his missus She made a fist and punched my arm. Of all the things I learned on the to come into my head. ‘With Wee Tam’s and Trigger too. Rode Trigger up the ‘The day she left, he started drinkin’ streets of Edinburgh that summer, the drinking, I guess he couldn’t make a fuss.’ steps of the Council Assembly Rooms he again.’ one from Wee Tam was the best. A lesson She stared at me. It was clear I had did. After they visited the orphanage, the So the next morning I got to work in got without the goading of fear, from a misstepped. ‘That’s where you’re fuckin’ Social came round to Wee Tam and they plenty of time. As usual Wee Tam sent the small man with a big heart. The thing wrong. Wee Tam stopped drinkin’ when gave him the choice. What I heard was he kegs spinning crazily over the cobbles, that drives us is love. The all-consuming his wife fell ill with cancer. Nursed her went up on the Pentland Hills all day and the sun flashing off their metal bodies. power of love. n for a year he did, but the girl was taken when he came back down, his mind was I had to be quick to catch them before into care as it was gettin’ too much for made up. What was best for the lassie.’ they crashed into my knees. Nevertheless him. But it was only meant to be a few ‘Christ, what a choice to make,’ I said. when Wee Tam finally said, ‘D’ye ken weeks.’ ‘Aye, but a good one for her. They took Roy Rogers took ma daughter?’, I was I felt miserable – for Wee Tam, for the her over to their ranch in Montana and ready. blighted family, for myself. But her look brought her up with their other kids.’ ‘Aye Tam, I know, and I’m sorry,’ I said. softened and also her voice. ‘Then Roy ‘And what about Wee Tam?’ ‘ D’ye want to talk about it?’

alf 4 and Stewart wis supposed The lassie started greeting. I’m nay to finish at 5. The loun had Overtime letting ye off wi it. She turned, headed Hdisappeared into the bogs, left down the staircase. The guy shrugged him to get the drinks. then followed. Stewart stood a minute, Being seen tae? By Mark Edwards heard her chap a door on the floor below. That had to be her standard question. He stept back into the lobby, leaving the Course he wisna being seen tae. He and ✯ door on the jamb. The emptiness of the she were the only folk in the bar. flat surrounding him. A second or 2 afore Pinta Guinness and eh, a coke. he realised he wis still holding the scraper. Draught or can? estate a few streets fae the huises ye were Lissin, I’m working thenight, so I could Somebody wis coming through the door. Eh? working on, creep in slowly, hoping to jist get summin out the chippy. He stept back, threw his arm up, scraper The coke. catch ye haen 40 winks or a quick read ae Ony idea fit time ye’ll finish? held like a knife. A can’ll dae fine. the paper. Far’s the young lad? If I’m nay back by eh, well, dinna wait Fuck sake! Need a glass. Stewart nodded towards the Gents. up. Thought ye were somebody else. Aye. The door opened. Glen appeared. Ye are working? Like fa? Ice? Fit ye bin daen in there, knitting? Aye, I’m working. How much I owe ye? No. I wis haen a shite. Okay then. Forget it. Glen wis still outside the They fairly made it easy on ye. He felt Shouldna huv daen that, said Flett. Glen wis leaning on the bar, chatting door. Ye got me that pint earlier so we’ll around in his overall pockets, realised he’d That’s the best ae ye gone. up the barmaid. call it evens. left his baccy in the van. He found the Tt. C’mon then Romeo, sooner we start, Cheers. That’s nice ae ye. phone Flett gave him a while back. As The barmaid held out a few coins. sooner we’ll finish. Glen reached inside the bag, handed soon as it wis on the bar it started to ring Stewart waved her away. Treat yersel. Nay fir a wee drammy? Stewart a fish supper. and vibrate. Hullo. Glen turned ti the bar, reached fir his No. Didna pass ombdy on the stair did ye. Far are ye. pint. Nay think it looks like a priest? I wis jist joking. Nivir saw naybdy, how. The Clifton. Eh. * Jist wondered. Ye aright. A pint ae Guinness. See the long dark The hale flat wis decorated in the They went through to the living room, The young lad winted ti come in. cloak, the white bit at the top fir the same pink wallpaper. Stewart thought it sat on the floor. Stewart wis staring inti I’ll be there in 5 minutes. collar. must’ve been a young lass that lived there space, supper in his lap. He minded the He pressed the button, pit the phone Stewart shook his head. Gie’s a smoke ‘til Glen said it wis probably a coupla gay pub earlier, Glen’s offer ae a dram. Jist the doon. He could mind this place fae will ye, ma baccy’s in the van. boys. Fitivir. It wisna the worst job. The one kain. He’d managed though. the bad auld days. They used to drop I’ll nip oot fir it. He made fir the surface layer tore away in long strips. The Nay hungry? change in the Gents’ urinal. There wis a door. backing jist needed a quick blast wi the He forced down a few chips. They sign above the urinal telling customers Tight as a duck. steamer, a bittie persuasion wi the scraper. tasted awful. all this coin wis being collected fir auld Nay flies on him. Flett reached inside When it came to the timesheets though Here, said Glen. Fit say we knock off age pensioners. Anybody caught stealing his jacket. Handed o’er a front door key, they would add a couple hours, tell Flett it aboot 10. You auld boys need yer rest eh. it wid be barred fir life. He checked his address written on the fob. Ony chance had been a pure bastard. His stomach wis * pockets. The baccy still wisna there. ye could dae a spot ae overtime. They’re churning. He wis starting to feel light- When he got hame Elaine wis in her £3.60 please. expecting it ready fir Monday morning. headed. He checked his watch, pictured dressing gown. She stood up as he came Christ, ye gona throw in a massage and Christ, they’ve some hope. I take it the Glen chatting up whichever lassie wis towards her. He kissed her cheek. haircut while ye’re at it? water and power’s on. working in the chippy. Ye okay. That will be right. New owners pit the Far as I kain. There wis a knock at the door. Likely Aye. prices up. I’ll see fit we can dae. Glen up tae his antics. He sighed, got Ye look knackered. It’s ay bin steep in here. Flett gave the barmaid a wave afore down off the steps, went to the door, He near started telling her about the I couldna tell ye. I’ve only worked here turning fir the door. On his way out, he pulled it open. A big lanky guy wis stood young lass coming to the door of the flat. a month. near bumped inti Glen. Mind it’s jist wun there. A wee blone next tae him, out of She would want to know why he hadn’t He fished out a fiver, handed it across, pint if ye’re driving. breath, red roun the een. done anything. I’ll stick the kettle on. glanced roun at the ciggy machine. 5 Nay bother boss. Glen walked over, Can I use yer phone? I need ti phone I’m off ti bed. coins fir 17 unless ye chose Royals who handed Stewart the baccy. the police. Be up in a while. gave ye 19 but were that rough ye’d be Ony plans fir thenight? He patted his overall pockets, realised Mind and wash. as well smoking tar off the road. He wid Nane so far, how. he’d left his phone in the van. I’m only When the tea wis made he went back jist need to put his bad habits on strike fir Spot ae overtime if ye fancy it. working here. There’s nay phone in this to the sofa. It wis still warm where Elaine half an hour. Or at least ‘til Glen extracted Double time like. flat. had been. He could smell the lavender himsel fae the lavvy, coughed up one of Time and a half. I need ti phone the police, she sobbed. stuff she used in the bath. He closed his his rarely dispensed Lamberts. Aww Stewart, could ye nay have He’s been hitting me. eyes, breathed deep. He opened them, saw Ye fine Stewart? haggled him fir time and 3 quarters? Tt. We’ve jist been arguing. the date at the top ae the day’s paper. It In this type ae situation ye heard Stewart looked away, caught the Stewart glanced at the guy, found him wis his 26th birthday. He should go tell Flett afore ye saw him. If ye were onsite barmaid smirking. He picked his phone staring back. A big nose that had been her. He reached fir his baccy.n somewhere though it wis a different story. up, went outside. broken at least once. Stewart didna fancy Flett wid switch to stealth mode, park the his chances.

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 25 Marguerite D’Écosse to the size of a new world? Hugh McMillan Will poetry have seen us through? I think, jealous Margaret Stewart of their high-fiving freedom wrote poetry every evening. through our long days She was loved for it by a few but to most of the courtiers of want and envy, she was the butt of jokes: we will swarm out to find a rook to strangle while nature they laughed at her clothes, scatters with a collective sigh her diet, her manners, of here’s this lot on the piss again. but most of all her desire to write: as if a teenager from the savage north could Public Safety Advice oan the Brent-New have noble fancies and Pestilence o 1348 the skill and wit to pen them. Hugh McMillan Her husband hated her, married her for her dowry of Scottish troops, If ye hae been fair awa or hae met onyane traivellin tore her verses up when she frae a kennt hot-spot died. He was a successful King: ie Asia Minor, the Crimea, in other words a brutal thug Genoa not Venice with libraries of books an ye begin tae shaw written about him, the followin signs:

but she is remembered Myld filever, in the vague and beautiful spreckle-lik spots, ways that matter to some, pechin , in scraps and stories byles in the oxters that might be dreams. an if it isnae possible locally They say the master writer tae thraw a jew Alain Chartier, or a humphy-backit wummin France’s finest, had a vision doon a well, dinnae fash - where she graced him with a poet’s kiss. adopt the following meesures:

buy or mak a mask wi a big beak an bide cosy in yer hoose! The New Old Age There is nae evidence Hugh McMillan the disease spreids tae pets sae dinnae fret aboot yer rottans , I am looking at the contents looses, golachs, sclaturs of my coat pocket: or mites they will be jist braw. a train ticket, a pencil plucked from the playground, a receipt for a steak pie What if there was a visitor to and large glass Tong in Lewis in 1929? of Sauvignon blanc, Hugh McMillan and I think I should put these on a shelf as symbols Mary MacLeod was walking down the beaten track. Ahead of her of a lost and easy age Broadbay glistened in the sheen of cold sunlight. The post had arrived and she was looking forward to reading a letter from her sister who was living abroad. Mary of innocence. dreamed of leaving this grey place with its mud and its hopelessness. She was a It is enough almost good-looking girl, just past her 17th birthday. There had to be somewhere else and to make you weep someone else. Happiness and out of a wind that cut through you. this sacred detritus, rubbish pregnant now A strange perturbation in the ditch, a sudden flare, sent a chicken running. Mary was surprised to see Angus Beag the itinerant grocer standing there: it was long with such meaning. past the time he should have been on the road. There he stood, with a strange When we emerge sheen on him. blinking into the future with our long hair, ‘Carson a tha thu cho neònach a choimhead, Aonghais Bhig?’ our chipped teeth, she asked, tremulously. ‘Cha mhise Aonghas Beaghe’ he responded, ‘Is mise Hyperalloy.’ our bandaged specs, He was reaching in his sack. There was a strange pulse of light. will those months “Chan e cucumber Aonghais Bhig” she said, the words fading on her lips. of self-help, yoga, soda bread and scrabble swell our brains

26 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 Uisgeachan Cealgaireach Peallag Àm-stòiridh Deborah Moffatt Eòghan Stiùbhart Eòghan Stiùbhart

Bhàsaich e anns an fhàsach Chanadach Shìos ris an abhainn Nuair a thig an sgeul gu crìch ’s dh’fhàgadh a chorp air an talamh reòite chunnaic mi an-dè i na lidean deireannach a’ teicheadh om bheul ri taobh Loch Marjorie, uisgeachan cealgaireach Peallag bhochd mar sheinn nan eun aig laighe na grèine an locha a’ deàrrsadh mar airgead-beò, canù cuirte le leadan salach ’s e mo rùn gun dèan thu cadal sèimh seunt’ os cionn a’ mharbhain gus nach itheadh coltas a’ phris air làn sholas leugach ’s bhruadaran mòra na madaidhean-allaidh e. ceann gun chìreadh a dh’fhàsas mar chraobhan le freumhan treun ’s i gun mhothachadh ’s iad pailt le meuran ’s duilleach a’ spreadhadh Nuair a ràinig an naidheachd an taigh air steall an earraich ’s geugan a’ sìneadh chun nan reultan dh’fhalbh a’ bhanntrach òg dhan bhaile, a’ ruith seachad oirre nan ceudan a’ nochdadh às d’ inntinn feuch an teicheadh i o uaigneas a’ ghlinne, ’s i a’ brunndail rithe fèin a tha mar iarmailt gun smeuradh a fàinne-phòsta òir a’ lasachadh air a meòir, ’s nì thu ceum tron chruinne-chè ud an daoimean prìseil a’ gliostradh gu fann Nan robh an sruth na sgàthan a’ buain mheasan gan cur sna speuran le deàlradh fuadain faoin. cha dhèanadh i càil dheth le sìl on sgeul mhòr bhuan nach tig gu crìch ’s coma leatha an saoghal Bha an naidheachd air sgaoileadh ’s coma leis an t-saoghal i air feadh a’ bhaile, ’s bha a càirdean còir aonragan truagh a’ gabhail truais mhòr rithe, deòir nan sùilean, am meadhan a’ bhaile The Seer ach chan fhaca i anns gach sùil ach faileas locha na daoine sìthe Alison Bell iomallach dorcha, ‘s uisgeachan cealgaireach cuide rinn fhathast a h-uaigneis fhèin. ach ’s sinne nach eil Up the Cairn here, there is a strange corner of airson am faicinn. recollection, of vision, where the blown bleached grass throws back the early sun. I’m listening to the lark song high and dizzy above me and around Famhan *Bha Peallag na h-aonarag, ban-sìth a bhiodh a’ me like I’m swimming in the sound of it and I see Deborah Moffatt fuireach leatha fhèin fad air falbh o dhuine, bha i the man. Yes, the lost man, not in his real person aithnichte airson coltas robach, tana agus falt salach, you understand but it’s him right enough. He Tràth san t-Samhradh troimh-a-chèile. Ged a bhiodh i ri lorg ri taobh lochan treads with no lightness, no intention, with little nochd na dùcain anns a’ ghàrradh, glè thric, bhathar ag ràdh nach biodh i uair sam bith a’ heed for bog or burn or the gorse bushes tearing torranan beaga de thalamh dubh coimhead air a faileas-aodainn san uisge. at his clothes and up to the knees in glaur. I can nan sreath anns an fheur, see the lost man through the hill… aye, like you’d see through mist. It’s not easy for me, not sure at na famhan rin saothair the first if it was a tree or a stone or just an old a’ treabhadh shlighean ùra Cèilidhean Mòra tired body with no sense of the world and how falaichte nan tunailean dorcha, Eòghan Stiùbhart it is this while. The what or the why or the how a’ meudachadh an ranntair aca, we are to live with the thing that’s about us in Linne Shlèite aon mhadainn Chèitein the air we breath, and dividing us from folk that sinne nar tàmh, a’ ghrian ùr aig deireadh bliadhna love us. Think of a dog that’s afraid and is running, glaiste nar taighean, iomadh earrach a chunna mi an sealladh running, without care for where, just moving, fad na làithean falamh, ’s mi ag èirigh às dèidh na cèilidh moving…the old body’s down on his hands. a’ saothradh gun toradh, samhail na h-oidhche roimhe nam cheann Staggering up again now and wiping his face but na beanntan air fàire ’s an impis falbh how many more times will he manage that and gar dalladh fhèin a’ siubhal na tìde ann an sìth na maidne keep going? No. I’m saying I can’t tell you where le doilleireachd an eu-dòchais, gach leòn slàn ’s a’ seòladh dhachaigh he’s heading, he doesn’t know himself, how should na famhan a’ sìor tholladh fodhainn. gu fasgadh a thogadh aig an t-sabhal I see that? Well, that’s your lost man and if he le gliceas an doille. a’ chiad gheamhradh sin an glac an teangaidh gets to the falls before you reach him then he’ll a chuir mi eòlas air blàths do bheòil be finished with all of this. You’ll need to shift ’s gach sian a thàinig leats’ on iar yourselves. No, no. Ask me instead about birdsong, ceò a dh’fhalaich Cnòideart, solas a las Mùideart or the happiness of children. a h-uile là na ràith fa leth a’ sìor-atharrachadh o chràdh na ghaillean gu gràdh mar fhalaisg agus dealachadh ceangailte balbh na bhun mus tug mi dhut an litir a bha nam dhòrn làn fhaclan o choille fhad às a dh’fhuasgail na deòir a thuit mar uisge sa cheann an ear ’s a thug blàthan samhraidh ar càirdeas beò

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 27 Zen and the Art of Lady Bird

Loretta M Mulholland

despise me, she was fully aware that she strange; almost ‘fearful’ – I was her ‘sole The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection; needed me, as I needed her, to launch my reliance’. She reflected that I might prove career, as aide to foreign travellers. Miss to be a ‘broken reed’, and confessed that The water has no mind to receive their image. Bird did give me credit in the end, though she often wished to give up the project, I am not often painted in a good light in on account of her nervousness and (Zenin poem; date unknown) her books. She never once referred to me cowardice! But she pressed ahead, assured by my full name. by her European friends, that she would Miss Isabella did not know this, but be perfectly safe amongst the ‘savages’ of I have kept copies of her books on our the north. tō Tsurukichi unfolded the scraps Sandwich Islands, where she spent some travels through the ‘Unbeaten Tracks of I have, as a matter of fact, very fine of newspaper sent from London by months … For the purposes of her travels she Japan’. I’ve read her accounts in parts eyes, as delicate as the petals of a lotus, Ihis former employer, George Lewis, made herself acquainted with minor surgery, - but only parts - as her language is so and I take great care with my appearance the successful English entomologist, to and sometimes found this sort of first-aid dense and difficult to decipher. I have - I must! My job and status as the most accompany the hasty note: knowledge invaluable … marked many passages of interest to me, highly skilled interpreter in Japanese At the edge of this torn-out extract, with little pieces of paper that stick out travel demands that I should appear as his friend had scrolled the source in and make the pages bulge. Tonight, for honourable and respectable as a foreign My Friend, Indian ink: The Northampton Mercury, the first time in decades, I consult her diplomat. 14th October 1904. volumes once more. For all her acute observations, I believe You may not be aware that Isabella It was true that Miss Bird had some I have marked her description of me – that Miss Bird did not appreciate what she Lucy Bird, described in our national medical knowledge, even prior to ‘the creature who appeared’, early on in was seeing, as she experienced the way of newspapers as ‘explorer, natural historian, her formal training as a nurse. Itō had her journey: Zen. I had not fully studied Bashō then, writer and the first woman to be elected witnessed at first hand, on his travels with but I was familiar with Shinto beliefs and a Fellow of The Royal Geographical Miss Isabella, her mixtures and potions He is only eighteen, but this is equivalent educated in the Chinese classics - before Society in London’, died in Edinburgh on that had helped ailing village folk. These to twenty-three or twenty-four with us, and the Meiji Restoration began to dilute the 7 October, at the age of 71. I know you often resulted in presents of a simple and only 4 feet 10 inches in height, but, though connections between the two religions. spent several months travelling with Mrs honest nature, and a respect between bandy-legged, is well proportioned and strong There was much for Miss Bird to learn, Bishop, therefore I thought you might be the lady traveller and the peasants she looking. He has a round and singularly plain and I was most honoured to be her first interested in some of the obituaries that encountered. He folded the scrap up, face, good teeth, much elongated eyes, and the teacher! have appeared in newspapers across the placed it back in the envelope, and began heavy droop of his eyelids almost caricatures … country, as well as those in the London to read the next: the usual Japanese peculiarity. He is the most press, of which you may be aware. I have stupid-looking Japanese that I have ever seen, The Japan that Miss Isabella entered in enclosed the following snippets, therefore, The London newspapers have not done but, from a rapid, furtive glance in his eyes 1878 was very different to our country for your perusal. justice to the wonderful career of Miss Isabella now and then, I think that the stolidity is today. Miss Isabella was fully aware of the I understand that you did not always Bird (Mrs J. L. Bishop), who has just died partly assumed. political aspects of the Early Meiji Period see eye-to-eye with the lady in question, in Edinburgh. She was one of the pluckiest but these were not her focus when she but such news is bound to sadden one, travellers of either sex that the country has ever My plain face is, unlike her description first approached Yokohama, as she wrote, even simply by virtue of the connections known, and her books were peculiarly rich in of my fellow countrymen, neither ‘ugly’ from the Oriental Hotel in 1878: that link our lives to people in the oddest fresh, direct observation. They began with letters nor a ‘ghastly-yellow’. Although she calls of ways. to her sister. Miss Bird started her travels at the me ‘stupid-looking’, she saw past my Eighteen days of unintermitted rolling over age of twenty-two, and, with the exception of cautious expression, which I employed “desolate rainy seas” brought the ‘City of Ever your loyal and faithful friend, seven years, continued them until a year since, to prevent too much questioning over Tokio’ early yesterday morning to Cape King, George L when, on reaching the age of seventy-one she my previous contract with the Botanist, and by noon we were steaming up the Gulf had to retire to Edinburgh on account of ill- Mr Maries. I had left him rather hastily, of Yedo, quite near the shore. The day was soft Itō settled into the futon in his sleeping health … But it was in regard to the East that in preference to the prospect of this and grey with a little faint blue sky … there area to read further. A cup of warm she was specially an authority … Round and appointment … but that is another story, were no startling surprises either of colour or sake sat by the dim light of the andon. about, she spent quite a number of years in and not one to be concerned with at form. Broken wooded ridges, deeply cleft, rise Would this be used for commiseration or Russia and Japan … this juncture! Miss Bird did record some from the water’s edge, grey, deep-roofed villages celebration? Not the latter. No. This little recognition of my intelligence, including, cluster about the mouths of the ravines, and English lady had made quite an impact Once more, Lewis had scribbled the of course, my proficiency in the English terraces of rice cultivation, bright with the on his life, though in truth, he often felt source: Gloucester Citizen, 12 October Language: greenness of English lawns, run up to a great it was partly the other way round. He 1904 I suspected and disliked the boy. However, height among dark masses of upland forest. The skimmed the first cutting: Itō smiled to himself … round and he understood my English and I his, and being populousness of the coast is very impressive, about … a number of years in Japan … very anxious to begin my travels, I engaged and the gulf everywhere was equally peopled Mrs Isabella Bishop, the well-known He repeated the folding process, him … He seems as sharp or “smart” as can with fishing-boats, of which we passed, not traveller and author, has died in Edinburgh. inserted the second newspaper extract be, and has already arranged the first three only hundreds, but thousands in five hours. The eldest daughter of the Rev. Edward Bird, into the envelope, and began the next days of my journey. His name is Ito, and you rector of Tattenhall, Cheshire, she was born on entry in his journal. will doubtless hear much more of him, as he Miss Bird appeared to be a little October 15, 1832, at Boroughbridge Hall, … will be my good or evil genius for the next underwhelmed by the lack of vibrant hues in Yorkshire.1 … Miss Bird was obliged to Tokiyo, 12th November, 1904 three months. in the Japanese landscape but I believe she become a traveller by continued ill-health. For So, the honourable lady who started So wrote my new employer to her was sensing that she was entering into a some time she suffered terribly from spinal me off on my life’s journey is with us no sister, Henrietta, after she had made my cloak of calm, despite the ‘populousness’ disease – indeed, the variety and extent of longer. Miss Isabella Bird is revered here acquaintance and resigned herself to the of the waters. She continues: her travels are extra-ordinary in view of the in Japan but she could never have written fact that she had a ‘veritable “old man of ailments from which she suffered at various her book on this country without my the sea” on her shoulders’. But when she The coast and sea were pale and the boats times. She was ordered sea voyages to the considerable skills in translation. I was was starting out on the ‘unbeaten tracks’, were pale too, their hulls being unpainted Mediterranean, America, Australia, and the one who gave her the insight into in her first evening alone in the midst wood, and their sails pure white duck. Now New Zealand. She returned by way of the our people. Even though she appeared to of ‘this crowded Asian life,’ she found it and then a high-sterned junk drifted by like

28 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 bulldozing blatancy of her own kind, for Our lady goes on to say that this is: I have rewritten that little ‘ditty’, as my sake is calling me: three separate haikus, just for you, Miss The echo of the wearied sensualist’s cry, Bird. Call it my late eulogy, if you please: It was nearly fifty miles off when we first ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,’ and indicates saw it. the singular Oriental distaste for life, but (it is) Colour and perfume a dismal ditty for young children to learn. Vanish away; what can be The air and water were alike motionless, Lasting in this world? the mist was still and pale, grey clouds lay Simple syllabary? Ditty? This is not a restfully on a bluish sky, the reflections of statement from the Book of Ecclesiastes Nothing is permanent. No need to the white sails of the fishing boats scarcely in the Old Testament! The pointlessness push that point now. quivered; it was all so pale, wan and ghastly, of human activity is not the theme of this that the turbulence of crumpled foam, which poem. Nor does it mean that God’s laws Today disappears we left behind us, and our noisy, throbbing must be kept, whether keeping them In abyss of nothingness progress, seemed a boisterous intrusion upon results in happiness or sorrow. Even less is A passing image sleeping Asia. it about the ‘Oriental distaste for life!’ Were you aware – even on your first As Mount Fuji faded into the mist, … visit – of this Zen sense of being ‘no- the ‘City of Tokio’ glided past the nods to one’? western expansion; Reception Bay, Perry Lady Bird’s chosen verse incorporates Island, Webster Island, Cape Saratoga and one of the four classic forms of Japanese Vision of a dream Mississippi Bay. A red lightship added an haiku, reflecting the moment; a nostalgic That causes only a slight accent of colour to the peaceful picture, sense of sadness, connected with autumn Feeling of trouble unveiling a clear message as the ship and the vanishing away of the world. It sailed closer, with the words, ‘Treaty is called aware. The form and ‘simple I pray to Buddha, and to your God Point’ painted in large letters: syllabary’ are lost in this translation. too, that you ‘vanished away’, with ‘only Isabella Bird a slight feeling of trouble.’ You were quite Outside of this no foreign vessel may I remind myself of the four modes of a special lady, Miss Isabella Bird, and if anchor. Zen or haiku poetry: there is such a thing as a soul, I pray for yours. a phantom galley, then we slackened speed sabi, meaning solitary or quiet to avoid exterminating a fleet of triangular- … wabi, a feeling expressed when sadness I believe you rest here in Japan, as looking fishing-boats with white square sails, Irimichi, Nikko, June 23rd overcomes you, catching a sense of the well as in your beloved Highlands and and so on through the grayness and dumbness way things are - or the ‘suchness’ of the little Isle of Mull that you talked hour after hour. …the people are very kindly, though almost things - through something familiar of so much. I believe you exist in the too still …’ aware - and mountains and rivers of the world, and At this point in her travels, our lady yugen - a sudden perception of in the rainclouds and the evening sunsets. was still open to a little wonderment, This was my employer’s first glimpse of something mysterious and strange, hinting You were a brave lady, and though you before endearing herself to the ‘doll-like the ways of a respectable Japanese family. at an unknown, never to be discovered. never directly praised me, I believe you manikins’ of my nation - as she liked to Nikko, lying to the north of Tokiyo, thought I served you well. In my eyes, describe us – and supposedly immersing was the centre of the Shinto religion It is my belief that you were you were living by Zen, in the way herself in our culture. The first glimpse of and the Shogun Empire. With the Meiji experiencing the ‘suchness’ of things, you wrote, when you focused on the our sacred mountain stole her, as it does Restoration, the samurai were outlawed as you travelled north, through the landscape, observing sounds and smells, us all: and Buddhism frowned upon. Temples unbeaten tracks of Japan. You revelled in describing what you saw, tasted and felt – and shrines were abandoned and it was the sabi and soaked in the quiet life of the all experienced in the moment, without For long I looked in vain for Fujisan, not unknown for samurai warriors to be mountains and plants. Within you, there thought or analysis. Of course, when you and failed to see it, though I heard ecstasies hanged from trees on the outskirts of the was a deep impression of wabi, relieved did stop to reflect, you were often less all over the deck, till, accidently looking city. Buddhism was separated from the only by the ‘suchness’ of the landscape than complimentary. Your honesty was, I heavenwards instead of earthwards, I saw far Shinto religion, but we Japanese have a and the kindness of people you met. For suppose, your greatest gift to the world. above any possibility of height, as one would way of living that cannot be severed from wherever you travelled, however foul the The yang in your yin. n have thought, a huge, truncated cone of pure our centuries old customs. weather and filthy the accommodation, snow, 13,080 feet above the sea, from which it you were the recipient of the finest sweeps upwards in a glorious curve, very wan, Miss Isabella thought our ways beneath hospitality that humans could encounter, against a very pale blue sky, with its base and her but when she visited the school at and you were fully aware of it. Perhaps this the intervening country veiled in a pale grey Nikko, she thought it was: was your yugen and the transformation mist. It was a wonderful vision, and shortly, as that your visit to Japan brought within a vision, vanished. … too much Europeanised … I thought you. it and the children looked very uncomfortable Miss Bird was very taken by our sitting on high backs in front of desks instead Sobata, one of the greatest writers of mountain, and no amount of grey could of squatting, native fashion.2 the Sung dynasty, wrote: disguise her joy: I have marked these passages because Misty rain on Mount Lu, … I never saw a mountain rise in such her interpretation of things was not And waves surging in Che Kiang; lonely majesty, with nothing near or far always how I had translated them to her. When you have not been there, to detract from its height and grandeur. No Take, for example, this lesson: Many a regret you have; wonder that it is a sacred mountain, and so But once there and homeward you wend, dear to the Japanese that their art is never The children recited a verse of poetry which How matter-of-fact things look! weary of representing it. I understood contained the whole of the simple Misty rain on Mount Lu, syllabary. It has been translated thus: And waves surging in Che Kiang. I shall return to this loneliness and its Like it or not, Miss Isabella Bird, your first relationship to our art at a later point. But Colour and perfume vanish away. journey here changed you. You knew it too, now, I must confine my last paragraphs What can be lasting in this world? which is why you came back East, again and Footnotes: to Miss Bird’s remarkable insight into Today disappears in the abyss of nothingness; again. 1 This is, in fact erroneous: Isabella was born in how my people viewed the clumsiness of It is but the passing image of a dream, and 1831 westerners, and how she recognised the causes only a slight trouble. … 2 ‘It’ here, refers to the teacher!

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 29 Woodcut Truck-stop, Umbria Copenhagen Bicycles Joanna Wright Juliet Antill Jon Miller

Sometimes The best caffè was the first, They glide swiftly along the lanes, we’re like a Hiroshige woodcut, taken at a roadside bar. upright, as if in armchairs, where snow We sat inside, but wished we’d sat scarved and hooded, creatures of wind, calligraphies an inky sky with the smell of diesel a wheeling flock clustering at junctions, and roofs and road and the growl of passing trucks. pausing at traffic lights cold-cheeked, are quieted by white. A hilltop village smouldered beyond the forecourt. breathing lightly, hatless, faces glowing Only shadowed footprints The first caffè was like pulling on a cigarette – as the wind winnows leaves from the trees, show our merging. bitter and terse. scattering them before their wheels, We meet, we talk, Language was made of bees. a wind bringing strange birds and, later, snow, our words are brittled A globe of light was in my cup. as the North slips down from its high latitudes by the cold and we tilt away from the sun and they ride on face first into winter dark, and we pass on, our private the sky closing its slow eye till Spring. silences draped heavy Lemon Groves, Murcia on our shoulders Jon Miller like the heft of snow on the rose-pink robe In the red dawn small birds rise Over the Hill of the hunched figure from the lemon groves Jon Miller heading one way, with morning in their beaks. on the paper parasol I will fade to somewhere just beyond your inkling and blue jacket Its scent rises on the rising light, to the house below the shore road hugged close by the figure prickles the noses of farm dogs where leaning on fences is all the philosophy a man needs. heading the other. setting them to barking. Leave laces untied. Learn an instrument. It startles the throats of cockerels. Or not. Gather reflections in a sea bucket Goats hang out their tongues and hold a rope for the worst fisherman in the west. a time of grace to sweeten their breath. Juliet Antill I will raise a slow finger in passing places, The housewife dreams its scent restore dormice and stunned bees to life when I began on her pillow, raises her hands as a murmuration dizzies the tree line. I had no map in my mind to rinse them in air. I was a child Cup a warm egg, sip tea with the postman with a child’s eye A campesino glides along, while the sleeping hound twitches in the hall. the country was all country his bicycle headlamp picking out I will leave my door open for deer to enter. rivers streams hills bogs constellations among the branches. nothing cordoned it The wheel has been off the truck for three weeks the sun pitched about like a drunk The schoolgirl chatters to it and I have not finished a single book. I knew no destination hanging about her shoulders, no barrier of ocean whispering its tang of womanhood. only the ecstasy of falling In the distant cities villagers the world was mapped are stopped in the street to have over time their lemon-scented hair inhaled. guarded with cardinal points as a bramble guards its fruit with thorns And at all the tables on that morning of small birds rising the world turned tenement and ginnel the yellow bells are held above plates turned five bar gate and wrung for their bitter twist turned straight paved road it was vertigo as high above, the aviator finds his goggles awash the sea gathering itself beneath me and Icarus falls, wings lemon-heavy, a tidal almanac fluttered in my hand into the grove of a million tiny suns. a mockery of flight

time slipped its mooring a pin grew broad and wide as an oak capillaries of sap poked holes in the sky planets scattered like pool balls the moon was a witch sowing self-heal in my garden sending the wind to play the long grass the long grass bowing

30 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 Heavy Weather Leonie Charlton John the fisherman Mark Vernon Thomas There’s a poem agitating on the B road to Abriachan John was a fisherman…and now I guess you think you know I keep going back to where I was pulled up by a roe buck the way the story goes: how he loved the sea, and a running colour of rust, and the dead hare where I let the car rest springtide, how he sailed with storms and seals and gulls, how danced on tarmac to Frazy Ford in close horse-breath air he lived his life in wild places, amongst the elemental beings there in the middle of a moor of bog myrtle and pine, heather in total bloom, of the world. It could be. There may have been icebergs. birch on shine, asphodel horizons of dirty gold Could have been typhoons. Or bright city lights, and tropical ports, and wild, wild women; it’s possible. He could have been juniper bushes all canted away from me in a conspiracy drowned saving someone he loved. Or saved by no-one he knew. Or perhaps by an enemy who turned out to be his long- I picked the single black berry from an unready of green, lost brother. Maybe he couldn’t swim at all - many fishermen held it electric between forefinger and thumb stopped dancing. can’t, why delay the inevitable, they say. Maybe he found a golden ring in the belly of a fish, or a magic lamp – but no: The hare’s hips were snapped and haunches laid flat, that would make him just the moral of a fabulous fisherman’s blood pooling to puce. Her ears rimmed in moon-sharp memory, tale, and not a fisherman at all. And John was a fisherman. That front legs lifted, ready to run across the hopelessness of heather. much I know. Perhaps he liked to drink. Many men do. Perhaps he never I pressed my thumb-nail hard into the juniper berry, breathed back to that day in May married. Many men don’t. Perhaps he had an aversion to dogs, in the Birkwoods of Braemar, when you invited me to sit with you, to rest the horses. never smoked, broke his leg as a child, kept a canary in a cage I’d ridden on without a word through in-between worlds of juniper and wood anemone. (the canary was called Blue.) Perhaps he was fished from the sea himself, learned to ski, had a science degree, perhaps he was At my feet, on the B road To Abriachan, whiskers moved, still looking for meaning afraid of ghosts, loved poetry, never voted... all I know is that in the whickering wind. Tears lifting for you and me, for that crushed moment. John was a fisherman. That’s enough for me. If I said more, then For this hare in two halves. this would be all about me, not John, and I’m not a fisherman. John was the fisherman, not me.

The Whirler Stone Leonie Charlton Haibun for the end of Lockdown Simon Berry The photo grabbed me, gutted me - in those known hands a rose-orange stone When we first viewed and visited I never thought to take weight of cabbage, shape of planet a look out this bathroom window. From the living room I owl’s energy field, perfect spacer for self remember we had admired that unexpected stand of birch across the road. The contrast with the traffic was striking. marvel of river-spent love Birch in a breeze gone with the photographer Unseen through many windscreens who with stone-bent desire Leafy waterfalls moved the man to lift what had sat on his garden fence for years In rain the birch seemed almost drab until the sun came and pass it over, (I’d seen this and turned away). through and caught the light. Now as owners of the house we Now her photo - the stone, in his hands - thought we were already blessed enough with that view. Then on my phone, and I can’t sleep one day frustrated by frosted glass I flung the bathroom window open.

I’d wanted the stone, not to take away Rain falls in sunshine not for me to own, just to be there No breeze to stir the birch almost unchanging, always on the fence. See leaves turn sequins I’d wanted to see how it settled into the wood a little more intimately each year. Profiting from prevailing winds and daring the town’s traffic, I’d wanted it to be there all for itself a seedling must have crossed and sprouted directly below this for the place too, for the man and the raggedy roses window. Now as the window swings inward in the breeze, washing me in exterior scents from the tree, I’m level with its but mostly for me, to be steadfastly there, for me. canopy of rampant growth. No longer is it an agreeably distant landscape. The heft of its absence presses my kidneys while he, giver, lets things pass through - Scents sharp as flint rivers and unwritten words Tree at the open window stones found, held, handed on Whispering crescendos not his to keep nor his to give away a stone pausing in hands that grasp at nothing, that open for passers through like salmon alevin, baby frogs ‘a half and a pony’, a shed-load of dreams.

His is a different hold to mine I want it, the way it allows to time, loosens feldspar crystals, unravels me in possibility.

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 31 Plague Clothes, macCloud Falls and the wider work of Robert Alan Jamieson.

Simon Wilson Hall on RAJ’s recent work, Shetland background and national importance

lague Clothes – this latest affected and worsened the course of the collection of lyrics from poet and pandemic. Reading these poems again Pnovelist Robert Alan Jamieson - is just six months on, it is hard to believe a book with a remarkable genesis. that these events happened so recently, In March of this year, as the first and the poems serve as a record and a wave of COVID-19 swept the world reminder lest we should forget the way and society ground to its lockdown halt, things have been during these last few Jamieson fell ill with what now seems months. almost certain to have been a case of the There is a light interlude in the middle virus. The illness was bad, and the poet’s of the book. Part of Jamieson’s recovery recovery slow. process (and part of his creative process) But, as his strength began to return, was to walk the river path from his home he did what he must and began to type- in the north of Edinburgh down to the up his daily reflections. These were not, I Forth at Cramond. The walking and should add, reflections on his temporary observing provide him with a number of personal frailty, but rather reflections on Zen-like moments of reflection and calm the psychological processes of lockdown, as he contemplates the swans, the ducks, on the rare moments of human joy the trees. But there have nevertheless and connectivity therein, and on the clearly been times when inconsiderate subhuman, venal political culture which cyclists have disturbed the recovering better enabled the virus to carry out its poet’s inner peace, as evidenced by a series deidlie wark. of five hilarious satires entitled ‘Know The pieces began as simple Facebook Collection published by Your Cyclists’. In these, his wit is not status updates, albeit with characteristic Taproot Press (2020) unlike that of one of Robert Garioch’s Jamieson wit and a lyrical edge. endearingly crabbit poetic personae. Within the space of a few days, they we ‘doomscrolled’ the lockdown media. while ‘culling’ is undoubtedly hard to Another of the many highlights of the were emerging whole, and daily, in a In its strength and simplicity, this was read, it is not an unreasonable choice of collection, and a quieter, reflective poem, quite remarkable series of reassuring nothing less than a perfect lyric. And so, term; we’re still wondering whether or is ‘I hear ‘Take Peace’’, which refers to a and deeply cathartic COVID-19 the tone was set for a sequence of quite not ‘herd immunity’ has been the UK phrase used in the poet’s Shetland family documentary poems. As regular as the remarkable poems that chart possibly the Government policy throughout the when he was a boy: daily press briefings from the First strangest experience of all of our lives so pandemic. Minister and the National Clinical far and simultaneously succeed in offering Three days later, by May 13th, we can I hear their voices in my head now, Director, the lyrics became an alternative some very welcome human comfort. be in no doubt that the post-COVID Saying, ‘Boy, tak paes, sit still.’ soundtrack to Jamieson’s Facebook The poems divide into three poet is getting his mojo back. He returns It was wisdom followers’ lockdown. categories. There are quiet, reflective to the same theme of the previous piece, Reading the untitled first poem of pieces; there are poems which are this time addressing himself directly to I didn’t appreciate then. the collection by the glare of a small really very funny; and there are others Johnson: Now I get it screen in my kitchen on one of the dark, which are unapologetically aggressive dark evenings of the early lockdown, I and confrontational in their criticism But now, now that I’m a Lert and fully I do. was struck by its mysterious affirmative of Johnson and Trump’s handling - if it functional, power: can be described as ‘handling’ - of the I have no option but to ask the honourable This therapeutic memorialising of the COVID crisis. From May 10th, the poem member language and wisdom of old Shetland We lost us for a while. ‘I call it what it is, a culling’ belongs in For Uxbridge goes back to the poet’s childhood in the the third category: west mainland during the sixties. Until we were ill FFS, The Jamiesons are an illustrious We didn’t know how sick our world was. I call it now what it is, a culling WTF, Shetland family with a long lineage, and WTAF this brings me to a final quirky footnote Until all was silent A culling of the old. relating to this book. During lockdown, We didn’t know how noise polluted. A culling of the sick. d’ye think yer daein, the poet’s son Patrick Jamieson and A culling of the poor. his partner Daniela Silva realised their Until the hospitals were full yaprickya? ambition of establishing a new publishing We didn’t know how brave the staff were. a culling of the weak. venture, the Taproot Press, with the aim WTAF, of promoting new, outward-reaching Until the animals came to town I saw no change of heart, FFS? Scottish and international literature. we thought them dead, or they’d deserted us. just camouflage and bluster So, Plague Clothes has emerged over insincerity, personal W. T. A. F. extraordinarily quickly and with great Until we saw nobody drama to distract. vigour, and it is indeed a lovely looking We didn’t know the ones we’d miss. This could be comical if it wasn’t so book accompanied with a rich selection Aim stated: immunity. deadly serious. The poetry is reminiscent of black-and-white photographs of Some we’ll miss forever. of the anger of Tom Leonard, bringing the north of Edinburgh during the You heard it too. language and class into focus once lockdown. It is particularly satisfying to A gentle incantation and a secular again and reminding us of the chasm see new poetry appearing in hardback, prayer, the poem seemed to distil This final line could be a play on the of apartheid extant within the British and the fledgling publishers are to be everything that had appeared before us as homophony of ‘heard’ and ‘herd’, and system, stressing how this division has congratulated on the quality of their

32 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 production. As well as being a superb the changes mean nothing but disruption most of the characters in this deliberately English that pervades between Gilbert collection of poetry, Plague Clothes sets a and sadness at what seems to be the unsettling story have multiple names and the white Canadians. The Scottish very high standard as a first product, and passing of an older way of life. Being and/or identities) is a sixty-something and First Nations experiences have it seems likely that it will be the first of young in the west of Shetland during the Edinburgh dealer in antiquarian books become entwined beyond the point many ground-breaking and challenging sixties and seventies, Jamieson was ideally and a cancer survivor. Spurred by his where it is possible to separate them, productions from Taproot Press. placed to document these changes as they recent brush with serious illness, he and Scots Canadians announce that affected his community. decides to make a bucket-list epic journey they have indigenous ancestors while Jamieson senior has made a rich, He developed a friendship with the to the wilderness of British Columbia to First Nations characters declare their colourful and unique contribution to Shetland novelist and lexicographer John research the life of his settler ancestor, the Scottish credentials. The novel succeeds Scottish Literature over a career that J. Graham, who became a literary mentor seemingly heroic Jimmy Lyle, and to make in its ambition to bridge nationalities and now spans some four decades. Although to the younger writer. Graham published an important visit to the frontier home of identities; this is neither Scottish nor is it he has become an elder statesman of The Shetland Dictionary in 1979, and a longstanding online client. Gilbert also Canadian literature, and it should also be Scottish Literature, a familiar fixture Shetlandic language was to become a has a third purpose in mind, as he hopes given due consideration as a 21st century of the Edinburgh literary scene and a necessary central feature of Jamieson’s to write a history of Lyle’s pioneer life. cultural artefact making a good deal Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at work, particularly in poetry. Jamieson However, having read, bought and sold more than mere passing comment on the the University of Edinburgh, he also has and former Edinburgh Makar and west books all his life, Gilbert is tortured with culture and traditions of First Nations impeccable Shetland credentials. of Shetland compatriot Christine De misgivings about his own ability to make people in a part of the world that we Born in Lerwick on Up Helly Aa Luca are now recognised as the two the leap to becoming an author. might now hesitate to too quickly refer 1958, he spent his childhood and part of leading Shetland language poets of their Into this complicated mix appears to as ‘British Columbia’. his early adult life in Sandness in rural generation. Martina/Veronika/Sigourney, a second Ongoing, postcolonial concerns aside, west Shetland, that land of lochs, rocks Indigenous language has always generation European Canadian with this is also the tender, dubious love story and heather where the black sea stacks been a key concern for Shetland poets whom Gilbert strikes up an instant of two emotionally and physically fragile assume their eerie and unkan shapes (by comparison, Orkney Literature friendship on his flight from Calgary to cancer survivors cautiously circling in the simmer dim. His was a typical has been largely anglophone - think of Vancouver. (And immediately, the novel one another at a distance. Near-death Shetland upbringing. His father was a Edwin Muir, George Mackay Brown takes on a further, layered, autobiograph- experiences come too frequently for merchant and part-time sheep farmer, or Eric Linklater) and Jamieson himself ical dimension, for we may have already comfort in this tale, from Gilbert’s initial and he lived in a multigenerational family has published two splendid volumes of spotted in the acknowledgements (can semi-suicidal ennui through to the later home where the matriarch was Jamieson’s poetry in Shetlandic, Shoormal (1986) these even be trusted?) that ‘…thanks are symbol of the 21st century frontier folk great-grandmother, who had been and Nort Atlantik Drift (2007), as well as due to Vancouver poet Miranda Pearson, bagging up their treasured possessions born in 1898. Through her, the young a wide range of Shetlandic translations who appeared as if by magic in the skies and sinking them in a creek while a Jamieson had a link to the older past and from European and other poetry. over Scotland in 2010 and … has re- forest fire threatens to engulf everything the Shetland language of the nineteenth I won’t call it unkan, because that mained magical ever since.’) they have built in their life - the constant century. He has remarked that there were would be to assume a mainstream, The plot kick starts as Martina arrives fragility of our human situation is placed distinct differences between the language southern point of view, but I will say at Gilbert’s hotel somewhere high in quite deliberately at the forefront of the used by his great grandmother and that that the language of these books is the B.C. mountain territory. She has narrative. For me, the sweetest, most used by his grandmother, who found unapologetically confident, vibrant and followed an instinctively sensed fear for tender moment of the story comes as the some of her mother’s words archaic and authentic in a way that few modern writers his wellbeing, and, finding his laptop two frail survivors hold platonic hands odd. in neighbouring Orkney have achieved in the empty hotel room, she begins to and touch platonic toes in a cabin bed, The family were Methodists, but there so far (with the notable exceptions of read an imperfectly fictionalised account contemplating the precious, delicate was none of the stereotypical joylessness Christina Costie and Robert Rendall). of their two days together in Vancouver nature of life as represented by their that is sometimes mistakenly ascribed Jamieson has spoken of the importance before he took the road north along the friends’ belongings deep in the creek. to rural Scottish religious communities, of using a local voice for local poems banks of the Thompson River. So, there Although by design macCloud Falls and Jamieson remembers a childhood of and local material, and he describes the are shifting sands beneath the shifting lacks heroics, it nevertheless charts a happy family faith, although he is now ‘whittling out’ of English as part of his sands, and we might as well accept that number of significant personal triumphs agnostic, describing himself in Shetland process. He has certainly been influenced there will be multiple and conflicting for the two leading characters, and the terms as ‘blide’, a word containing by the Glasgow work of Tom Leonard, and ‘truths’ as the narrative progresses. narrative pulls out a number of very a combination of connotations of he speaks with relish of returning to first macCLoud Falls is at once a great pleasing surprises towards the end, one of contentment, satisfaction and gladness. principles of orthography. It is interesting American road-trip novel, a romantic which involves an antique book which to note, notwithstanding Leonard’s quest, and an appealing mystery. Martina may or may not be a first Kilmarnock Although he has never been confined anti-nationalist linguistic insistence and her faithful sidekick, the ironically Edition of Burns’ Poems Chiefly in the or restricted by his island background, and his clear discomfort with regard to named Hero (that’s right, there’s no hero, Scottish Dialect. But it is in Canada where Shetland has nevertheless provided the concept of a ‘Scots Language’, that just a heroic dog) accompany Gilbert the endearing old Edinburgh bookseller him with a store of language, lore and Glasgow poetry seems to have facilitated on an epic journey round the province, encounters a startling range of new inspiration. His first two novels used work four hundred miles further north encountering a rich cast of characters. truths about his own, his ancestors’, and Shetland as their setting. Soor Hearts in Shetland; surely there must be some The indigenous people of the his nation’s past. I’d go as far as to say (1983) is a dark historical island saga commonality here? Nlaka’pamux Nation are the key to that this is Jamieson’s finest prose work of opportunist island capitalists and Subsequent Jamieson novels moved Gilbert’s quest: his ancestor is reputed to date, while Plague Clothes is his best preachers, while the follow-up Thin into territory that is increasingly to have negotiated with the colonial volume of poetry so far. Wealth: A Novel from an Oil Decade (1986) postmodern. A Day at the Office (1991) is powers on their behalf and is credited is one of only two Scottish books I’m a real-time, urban stream of consciousness with having saved from oblivion a hoard Robert Alan Jamieson is still much aware of that deal with the advent of the departure from the more familiar rural of First Nations lore and knowledge. too young to be described as a ‘grand oil age in the Northern Isles during the material and has enjoyed enduring But there are truths within truths, and it old man’ of Scottish Literature. But the seventies (the other being David Sinclair’s popularity and acclaim. Da Happie Laand is only with the help of a hostile First accumulation of his work, coupled with superb Orkney comedy about canny (2010) returned and didn’t return to Nations guide that Gilbert learns it was his ability to find such blistering form Flotta crofter Willick o Pirliebraes (1981)). Shetland, moving as it does between a in fact Lyle’s wife Anko who bore the during periods of personal adversity, Thin Wealth takes a deep and serious contemporary island narrative and the traditions. Lyle’s lesser contribution was mean that he is assuming his position as look at the disruption to traditional ways story of a mythical Shetlandic South merely being in the right place at the right one of the preeminent Scottish writers of life and values that arrived first with the Seas colony. Most recently, and appearing time, being the white man who scribed of our time. Readers await further lyrical construction boom at Brae and Sullom again now in a new paperback edition the indigenous woman’s knowledge in grace and postmodern playfulness and, in Voe and which continued as locals found from Luath Press, he has pursued these English. the meantime, we wish him all the best employment at the new oil terminal. The postcolonial and diaspora themes further Comparisons with the recording of for a full and speedy recovery. n novel counterpoints the experiences of in his most ambitious fiction to date, Scottish folklore and the possibility of Plague Clothes is available at £15 from young Linda Watt, who takes some of the macCloud Falls (2017). the existence of Scottish ‘natives’ are Taproot Press and the 2020 paperback opportunities available to her generation, Protagonist and semi-reliable partial never far away, mirrored in the comedy edition of macCloud Falls at £9.99 from with those of the older crofters for whom narrator Gilbert (or Gil, or Bert – for of misunderstanding of varieties of Luath Press.

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 33 Til Gjogv * Robert Alan Jamieson Every little hollow, every 1 rock of substance, every pool in the river stream, named Hair-pinning round and up – precipitous, and full of story – myth; round and up, and round – hire-car precarious, every path kept trim round, that roadside parlous by hooves and feet; those stones arranged becomes a mountain pass. to make a ford where no one crosses now. From here the distant steep is quite symmetrical – layers of branch upon a conifer, trunk in floods, Once, earth was turned, shaped by singular, sculptural purpose. the precious seed sown – once, a meagre crop grew, Was this a giant building up of layers, sheltered by immensity. or a wearing down over thousands of years, revealing different strata – or both? Each ear was maet, each scything sway So we descend, a long gentle valley, a measured, careful step. erratic moor – one passing place, a single passer – Each turn of the millwheel, to hived turf roofs, hugging shallow earth, another winter morsel. Each armful of hay, their walls bright-painted, white, red, black and green, most welcome in the byre. where washed-out earth meets deepest blue. *

2 I miss those fields, the folk who worked them, poor and set upon by fate, bent and broken by sheer effort, The Gjáarfólk who live here, who smiled and took you in, a stranger to their fire, they seem to call home ‘Jeff’, who filled your plate with all they had to offer, this Gjogv. We call it ‘gjo’, food wrested from salt water, nursed from earth – this cleft, a familiar geo-feature, though here the need for shelter Who asked you, eagerly, what news? requires some engineering, to draw the craft, or cargo, up: They were here, too, I know, those old ones. Faroe’s only railway. I see their trace upon the hillside still. But there’s more to Gjogv than The world beyond their valley, they knew little, than a station for an ocean – no more than stories sailors brought across the greengrey hillside, . fallen, mossy dykes but this land rutted by their forebears, separate old fields crossed by their paths, from common land it mapped a legend local. up on the mountain. Below, overgrown ditches commemorate plots once worked, rotated, I don’t doubt, much as ours were: Rebirth those hame-rigs – for the Peruvian Princess Mummy, Elgin Museum, Morayshire ancient grounds Helen Allison intimately known Behind a curtain, mounted on a wooden pole pushed up through her pelvis, she is foetal under a glass dome, her sharp, little spine rising to a sugar loaf skull, magic hair gone, teenage body folded like brown paper five hundred years old, her crumpled face resting on her hands. Stolen from a cave in 1845, she will never awaken to a new life, her soul wandering in the forests, or falling down a hole in the earth to the damned.

Holding open the curtain, a foldaway chair pulled up beside her, they let me sit and sketch her face. I tell her the forests here are deep and lovely, that women cut their hair now to show their power, how all my family’s females are her five foot four, and why my teenage daughter also bares her teeth. I leave her for the cinema, to watch a star being born, and while someone is deciding if she can return home, I go back and tell her she is goddess of this museum, that my daughters are my crops, and cannot fail.

34 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 REVIEWS

A Day Like Any Other - nature’s signifier of newness, possibility established paradigms of gender, family is surely a welcome and inspiring Isla Dewar and growth - shines through the window. and sexuality often impact as seriously celebration of the extraordinary and Polygon (2020) Yet the inherent prescient quality of a upon personal survival and growth as the too often undervalued contributions Review by Cynthia Rogerson pandemic novel set just before Covid-19 pandemic itself. of women to the public spheres of can trigger an interest, capturing readers Incunabulum’s surgical illustration of science, political and social activism, This is Isla Dewar’s 19th novel. She’s given with the potential for initiating deeper the tenacity of capitalist ideologies is leadership, medicine, law, engineering, us classics like Women Talking Dirty (made understandings and insights into current revealed through the detailed, crises- the arts. One is left moved by frustration into a film starring Helena Bonham personal, social and political crises with ridden interactions of Alice’s group: these and admiration at skirmishes with the Carter) and Keeping up with Magda. Fans its imaginative construction. are shown to be as much a function of patriarchal dragon and impressed by the will not need any persuasion to read this Published almost at the end of March dogged habits, prejudices and behaviours life-giving breath of Stevenson’s poetry. new book – but even so, they are in for 2020, Carol McKay’s Incunabulum as they are frantic, spontaneous reactions As Hilary Mantel notes, ‘as soon as we a treat, for A Day Like Any Other is not a seems to reflect current tentative steps to sudden and significant change. die we enter into fiction…only through book like any other. Technically a novel and fragile hopes, but its pandemic is The echoes of classist, sexist and racist art can you live [history] again’. But the about life-long female friendship, the catastrophic, wiping out the vast majority paradigms that claim the empty space true visceral impact lies in the way these overall story is much wider, far deeper. of Britain’s population. With minimum excavated by the pandemic are sometimes individual ‘voices’ form a quiet collective, It encompasses grand themes like guilt effort the aggressive sweep of infection as tragic and profound as the impact of the demanding a reimagining of the very and atonement. Getting old and dying. creates “body piles: a spaghetti bolognese disaster: it’s as if (to borrow from Erasmus) edifices and structures of power today. Losing loved ones and never recovering. of limbs, heads and clothing”, leading in the land of the new, old habits and ‘Voice’ forms the substrate for Poetry and the nature of writing. Social the narrator to admit to “roll[ing] up the memories are king. But this is the way themes of identity and empowerment. isolation and a sense of community. Being windows and turn[ing] the other way”. the novel highlights both the security Stevenson addresses the potential snag of haunted by lost loved items (in George’s These abject sights in turn stimulate of habits and their need to be changed. maintaining each poem’s distinct voice case, an entire kitchen). And perhaps most images of the Thames in London Alice articulates this when, taking her by removing herself from all but two. resoundingly of all, the novel recognises “running pus from all the bodies”, even glasses off during a conversation about Instead she grants narrative voice to the that stupidity is universal and therefore though none of the characters are likely the tragedy of her lost baby, she says, “My subject or to a close person or object - a worthy of forgiveness. to venture that far: the dread evoked by life always looked better out of focus”. daughter, a Maggie’s Centre, a sari, a ship, The two characters who deliver these profound human, animal and landscape This analogy reverberates throughout Death, even a constellation. Eighteen weighty themes are themselves light. decay close by is effectively established the novel, pointing to the need for a of the 62 poems are in Scots, with the They make the book a joy to read and early on, and serves to stifle any such new focus, new ways of seeing. But remainder in English with the occasional the medicine easy to swallow. Anna and thoughts. Incunabulum is clear that only we can do Gaelic idiom. In the mouths of women George (another girl) meet as children The novel’s descriptive energy this re-visioning; only we can look anew like Jane Haining, Isabella McDuff, and join forces against a classmate, successfully draws readers into a particular to the common humanity in all. martyr Margaret Wilson and ‘Hauf- Dorothy Pringle, who is as stuck up and feature of crises - their ability to trigger Incunabulum is also a form of book hingit Maggie’, the music of Scots is a prim as her name. But there is nothing “stun” moments. Our main eyes on the within a book. Early on, Alice takes a resonant expression of both personality noble in their conspiracy to torment destruction are Alice’s, a sixty-something precious 16th-century incunabulum and heritage. Yet Stevenson maintains Dorothy, and as old women they feel a local history librarian who, having lost from her old library, one that chronicles a a broad notion of Scots identity. In the need to make it up to her. Meanwhile consciousness for an undisclosed period terrible tempest. In the final chapter, just words of Countess McDuff: they meet weekly for lunch, and we are of time, awakens in Glasgow to a sense that before she puts the book in a safe, she given their back stories: George’s teenage she’s “slept for a million years”. Through explains to Basher, the Arabic-speaking A skimmer o licht on the waves ablow. rebellion and love affair with an ill-fated Alice we experience the emotional asylum seeker, that it tells how “They Scotland tae the North, England tae the Sooth. handsome rogue, and Anna’s ill-fated disquiet elicited by the transformation of overcome all the ordeals. […] They The samin mune abuin us aa, that hus nae care marriage with a man who has no interest the familiar and good into that-which- overcome all the obstacles and go on all fur stane or nation, croon or king. in sex. Cleverly threaded through the no-longer-is. While this is a short mental the stronger”. It is good to conclude with stories and the lunches are their current process, the novel highlights how residual the capacity of the human race to come The English of the remaining two lives: what their past has led them to elements - the essence of the object or together with dignity and compassion in thirds reflects the collection’s inclusivity, embrace; or, in Anna’s case, ultimately let person - linger in the deadened state as the context of radical change. n from Scots-born women, like Mary go of. tangible reminders of what has been lost. Slessor and Mary Somerville, who made It’s an easy read, unsurprising from Thus it is that, in the blink of an eye, Quines: Poems in tribute to women their mark abroad, to those, like freed a writer with a long track record - but crises activate feelings and sensations of of Scotland slave Eliza Junor and WWI doctor Elsie having read most of her previous books, horror in accordance with the mind’s Gerda Stevenson Inglis, who were of Scots heritage or I think this has something new. Warmth growing awareness of the alien scenes Luath Press made Scotland home. Had Stevenson had and honesty pour off the pages like a now overtaking the norm. And, with Second edition (2020) Gaelic, one senses that Sgàthath, Màiri soft duvet thrown around the reader’s little time for establishing new maps, our Review by Becs Boyd Mhòr nan Òran or Màiri Anndra would shoulders, or indeed, like making two sense of being can become suspended - have made expressive use of it. new best friends. But there is nothing or irrevocably, fundamentally, altered. Powerful writing, like Gerda Stevenson’s Silence, as the unspoken as well as the remotely sentimental about this book. Upon realising she’s one of very few Quines, not only creates a life beyond quelled, becomes its own ‘voice’. While George and Anna do not live idyllic lives. survivors, Alice’s instinct is to search for the page but alters the cast of light, patriarchal silencing seems omnipresent - They’ve had lives like any other, and they people she knows. When she discovers modifying the sight, smell and taste of the in the form of the marriage bar (‘another understand now that when death comes, most of them are dead, she finds herself present. Released in its second edition as good woman consigned to the grave it will probably be on a day like any other. in the company of those she would lockdown loomed in early 2020 with of wedlock’), male violence (‘clure We are all in the same boat and it leaks all normally avoid. And this is where the the addition of five new poems, the the hure’) or societal presumption (‘a our lives. Let’s be kind to each other. n democratising momentum of Incunabulum collection charts a hidden history of over person is defacto male’) - there is also resides as, with the city’s capitalist 70 extraordinary deceased women of empowerment in the space between “Supp’d full with horrors” institutions and modes of production Scotland (including a football team), from words. Lady Nairne, Helen MacFarlane Incunabulum inoperable, all goods are free, and normal a 5000-year-old reconstructed girl’s head and Margaret Wilson choose the voice Carol McKay status signifiers have no practical function. in a Shetland museum to this century’s of silence (‘thae words wunna pass her The PotHole Press (2020) Symbolic of this transition is when Alice remarkable quines. stane-cauld lips, fur aa their soun wull Review by Valerie Beattie gazes at a twenty-pound note and some Stevenson frames the collection as, gie her life’). Stevenson posits ‘voice’ not coins in her purse as one would museum ‘not to highlight injustices…but rather as empty noise but as intent - ‘no false Reading fiction about a pandemic artefacts from the Egyptian empire. But, to celebrate achievements’. Yet these emotion, no romantic froth’. As Mary whilst living in the midst of one may despite the theoretical freedom afforded intimate, deeply human voices turn Slessor insists, ‘My God wudnae demand seem strange, like deliberately reliving a by the collapse of capitalism, hierarchies tapsalteerie the traditional paean of I obey ony man’s decree that wisnae true nightmare whilst the light of morning of social status are slow to weaken, and ‘derring do’. At one level the collection tae common sense’. While Stevenson’s

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 35 REVIEWS writing demonstrates the power of and feeling using the full-bodied dialect’ landscape. He is unafraid to write for language to reveal the hidden, these and proposes that ‘language is a dialect De Luca’s poems pitch us into the children, and humour plays an important women remind a social media generation with a literature.’ She is grateful for the Shetland landscape but range widely role in Facing the Persians, a collection that they are essentially about action, not EU’s encouragement for minorities and beyond it, addressing not only the natural which feels as if it has been many years in talk. minority languages, and for a recent world, but life, joy, sadness, love, and time the building, each poem like a good malt Part of the ‘truth’ of these voices trend for publishing ‘work with a feeling – always framed in and enhanced by the – well-made, maturing under Highland seems to be the inextricable connection of liminality, periphery, of linguistic words she came from. She looks for, and skies. He is a man in sympathy with the between the extraordinary and the deeply or cultural distinctiveness.’ She traces achieves, a negotiated understanding, landscape. In Strathconon [see page 23 ordinary. Achievement is worn lightly. In the Norn that has evolved into current whether in the iconic cockle shell pattern of this issue. Ed.], he laments: ‘When you ‘Helen Crawfurd’s Memoirs in Seven Shetlandic to the Danish-Norwegian so much Shetland knitting is famed for took the autumn to London/And left Chapters’, the redoubtable suffragette, history of the islands; and to the Old Scots me to burrow into winter/I said they Red Clydesider and peace campaigner, with which Norn inexorably mingled. ‘ … therteen loops taen in could pack up Strathconon/Box up the now old, recalls her greatest moments on De Luca grew up in Shetland, but left dan löt oot slowly on a oppenwark o gengs: birch and larch/Return the swans on the international stage but now it’s, ‘Tea- the islands to study and has long lived in waves at shadit ta inky-blueness wi da wind.’ Achonachie’… time. Must get to the Co-op before it Edinburgh. She was appointed Edinburgh Da cockle shall In Just for you, he smiles Just for you/ shuts’. Humour excavates the human, as Makar from 2014-2017. Both she and I’ll make the sun to rise/And the birds to when Mary Slessor chides St Paul on his her work are celebrated across the world, or in remembering, after her death, sing….Just for you/I’ll open butterflies/ imprecations to wifely submission, ‘Na, anthologised and translated not only in a much-loved aunt explaining the exact Upon the flowers. .. but warns ‘Margaret, na, Paul laddie! This will no do!’ Elizabeth Icelandic and Norwegian but also French meaning of the word Yarbent: our forebear/Was a last witch/Tried in Meehan and the Northern Ireland and Italian. Scotland.. .. So even now/We’ll keep Women’s Coalition deactivate sectarian In this retrospective and ‘‘Weel, hit’s a boo o wadder fae da sooth aest, these gifts/A secret’. hatred by simply dancing in its face. How, chronologically-ordered bilingual laid on herd an dry, no laek ta shift, But he’s not afraid, either, to laugh.. these voices demand, does one measure collection she offers her poems in proud maybe roond voar, or efter hairst.’ as in Poetry Reading.. ‘Yes, My Titanic achievement in the public sphere against Shetlandic matched with English versions poem/at the poetry reading/Went down the ‘ordinary’ experiences of everyday she characterises as accurate translations Der a yarbent settled apön me far you göd: very well’. womanhood – childbirth, miscarriage, framed for meaning and not poetic sic a peerie wird, but nirse. A’ll varg As an editor, Ian Olson encouraged love, loss, violence, self-sacrifice, ageing – effect. She hopes that English speakers i da face o him and keep i da mind’s eye many young poets. His own work, that permeate each human story? This is will ‘sound out the poems phonetically’ as you wir wint tae, da bigger picture.’ distilled in this collection, deserves every the insight movingly embodied by Mary and that once spoken aloud, released respect. n Queen of Scots, forced to abdicate the into the air, the Shetlandic will feel ‘less The bigger picture. Life. day after miscarrying twins: ‘dinna waste unfamiliar.’ She is not afraid to challenge The poem as dance. Florilegium yer tears on gien up a bittie gowd an the reader. I have never seen it, but in the Faeroes Molly Vogel glister, haud ma airm if it helps, but dinna, Let me say from the outset that this there is a famous traditional dance Shearsman Books (2020) dinna greet fur this.’ To be extraordinary, work is a delight. performed to ballads chanted in the Review by Lydia Harris the poems suggest, is not a matter of There are many ways in which Faeroese language, which like Shetlandic status, statues or plaudits, but of a quality you could approach the reading of it: derived from Old Norse. For centuries, Molly Vogel’s collection is a rhetorically of spirit that knows the transformative aloud or silently; in Shetlandic alone; this language was suppressed, not written inspired gathering of poetry, plants and a power of the ordinary, transcending in Shetlandic followed by English; in down, but the ballads for the dance kept collection of extracts. The book is in two outward trappings. English alone. You could intermingle the it alive. parts, the poems followed by an extensive For today’s trauchled world of texts, comparing and contrasting, dipping Christine De Luca is not the only glossary, each entry cross referenced to its fake news, narcissism and persistent in and out. You could embark on a poet currently publishing in Shetlandic, base poem. The Glossary catalogues not inequalities (notably fewer than a third straight-through reading, from beginning but the poems in Northern Alchemy alone only flowers but the thinking behind this of Luath Press authors are not white to end. But however you map your would set the heart dancing, keep any meditation on flowers. The entries are in male), Stevenson’s Quines sounds a clear progress through Northern Alchemy, the language vibrant. alphabetical order, so God, Honey and note of both hope and warning. These music, the muscularity and poise of the Rhetoric take their assigned places with are unique female voices ostensibly language whether Shetlandic or English, And her English translations would do Rose, Bluebell and Zinnia. separated both from the reader and each the beauty and importance and life of it for English too. n The mesmeric, questioning poems other by such inconveniences as death, each and every poem will linger. with their many biblical references, time, politics, religion, ethnicity and class. The earliest poems tend to reflect the memories of childhood, reflections on Yet their congregated presence assumes poet’s deep-rooted Shetland experience Facing the Persians time, human passion and God’s relation a mysterious autonomy, a female chorus, and heritage: Gyaain ta da eela (Going Ian A. Olson to the universe, are expressed through the that speaks from the pages to challenge as evening sea-fishing) demonstrates Tellforth Publishing ISBN 978-0- diverse languages of flowers. Students of well as to inspire. n perfectly the strength and beauty and 9956419-0-7 nomenclature, like Linnaeus, are guests exactitude of the Shetlandic voice. Review by Anne MacLeod here, alongside Plato and Theresa of Northern Alchemy Lisieux, the Virgin Mary and Andrew Christine De Luca ‘Abön da tide, laek a sel, wir boat wid lie; Dr Ian Olson, who describes himself as Marvell: a Florilegium of scholars, poets Patrician Press (2020) we hed ta tize her doon, long-retired, worked in medicine and and questing human souls. The poems Review by Anne MacLeod bulderin an traan owre da ebb education with a particular interest in observe, wonder, respond, mythologise, but nyiff i da sea.’ handicap in children. His parallel career translate into prayers. In her introduction to Northern Alchemy, was in Scottish traditional culture, They are allusive; they come at their Christine De Luca lists the three choices In Wast wi da Valkyries, the language especially balladry and history. From subjects slant as in ‘Snow Bunting’, where open to a poet born with an indigenous pins us exactly to the voe then spins us the mid-eighties until the year 2000, he the bird is present obliquely in the delight mother tongue: a/ to write and publish into an uncertain future: edited the Aberdeen University Review, of the human other, of the divine other. only locally in that tongue; b/ to publish and worked successfully to persuade It is characteristically conversational in a tiny amount of indigenous work, ‘Dark burn ta voe, a rinkel Aberdeen University to create a Chair of tone. This poem, as are many here, is part weaving (and hiding) it in collections bi Nederdale, trist slow slockit Scottish Ethnology. of an ongoing colloquy. shaped in English; c/ to dilute the native in a sea-baaled ayre… With such a sweeping, generous, voice in the interests of English clarity. background, it is no surprise that the out on the bird-shore, De Luca could only contemplate the ….but fur wis poems are as diverse and as broad- our rapine bodies sore first of these. Anything else, she says, travaillers o da western edge based as the man. He is fascinated by in their longings. would have felt like selling out. She hit’s a time to tak, ta pick owre Greek Mythology, by Celtic and Gaelic writes from the need ‘to express thought gaets wir taen, or no taen..’ literature, by the Highland history and Vogel’s writing is abstract and precise,

36 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 REVIEWS formal and free, sacred and profane. of woman have been a preoccupation of Human love is the energy which the book. enlivens the collection. ‘Isle of Skye’ is a The book concludes with the Zinnia, wonderfully bold and tender declaration and Vogel’s analysis of Zufosky’s 1976 of love. lines about Zinnias. It is a gesture of humility to close with another poet’s And then I remember: it is you lines on regeneration, of moving from z I miss in the fetterless body to a, to close her book. n of every living name… User Stories ‘Una Ursula’ is another flower in C D Boyland the bouquet gathered ‘of other men’s Stewed Rhubarb, 2020 flowers’. A beautiful tribute addressed Disappearance/north sea poems/ to poet Robinson Jeffers, it moves from Lesley Harrison his biography to his landscape. The lines Shearsman Books, 2020 flow through life and death to a yearning Letter to Rosie for the wild world and its rhythms. The Ross Wilson movement of the thought replicated in Tapsalteerie, 2020 the movement of the lines. First Hare Richie McCaffery …in your god-like Mariscat Press, 2020 Thirst for the delicate and the desolate. In Good Time James McGonigal ‘Definition’ comes early in the Red Squirrel Press, 2020 Glossary. In it, Vogel discusses the Poetry review by Ian Stephen conception of Hamilton Finlay’s garden florilegium, Little Sparta. As his garden Here are four new books of poetry, all depends on ‘juxtaposition and definition’ single author collections and all published so the poems and the essays of the in this difficult year. The publishers glossary ‘describe and dissolve accepted deserve a cheer as much as the authors. meanings’. All productions show a level of care and commitment to the cause of bringing …utopia has many interpretations… their poets’ work out to seek its audience. The appearance and feel of these books Flowers and their classification are is going to help. a language for the poet to probe. The Within the limits of a wire-stitched, collection identifies all life as sacred. 24-page booklet with no spine, both The lover is present, as God is present. typography and design emphasise the Vogel uses the language of flowers and contemporary feel of the poems in ‘User the language of liturgy and Biblical texts Stories’. These are mainly in lower case to celebrate human love. The poems are and often use unconventional signals underpinned by curiosity, analysis and for line-breaks and rhythm shifts. But prayer. other poems like ‘The Puppet’ use a ‘Penny Wedding’ with its half rhyme, more orthodox orthography and even a elegant couplets and blending of the narrative with a sting in the tail. There’s a sea with the land, of flowers for healing literary nod to Pinocchio but older myths with machair, of St Francis with Calafia, and the oral literature of Homer are also surprises and delights the reader with alluded to. ‘The Sirens’ is full of twists and skeins of seaweed and fleck of coin, ironies. Its arguments are convincing: with movement and light. Here, where thinking, feeling and prayer are woven Vogel refers to many voices. In ‘Ode grows like a repository of potential ‘…heroes need swords, blood, war & together in a celebration of human love. to Neruda’ the poem’s humility is to be poems, a store of ideas. The glossary death to make a world. we need only song.’ like Neruda. Vogel tracks the motions of invites us to read the poems in a new way. …scattered exchequers of manna. the mind through the fingers of the poet. Having read them we reflect on their Maybe all readers of poetry have a The epigraph which opens the whole words afresh. ‘Ikebana’ offers us insight shelf to place pamphlets or volumes ‘Interruption and Completion of a collection includes Montaigne’s assertion into the placing of the poem on the page, which have the satisfying feel that Thought’ is a reverent, slow love poem. that ‘he gathered the flowers of others’. the poem as flower arrangement. make you return to them. Mine has Vogel enriches the language with One spring of the book wells up in ‘Primrose’ activates the poem it cross Lesley Harrison’s collaboration with Japanese and with immersion in another Eden, and this leads to a discussion of references, ‘Child Dreaming in a Poet’s Orkney artist Laura Drever, in its hand- culture. The poem is wonderfully distant the flowers in ‘Paradise Lost’. The poet House’. Like the primrose, the poem sewn small form (Brae Editions 2011). and wonderfully sensuous. exercises her own rhetoric to celebrate opens in less than a minute. Shearsman, publishers of this first full The book is inhabited by other Milton’s, as she explores the theology of Consideration of Queen Anne’s Lace length collection, are also the publishers tongues. Greek, Latin, Chinese, Japanese the flower in the scheme of the Fall in leads the poet to Carlos Williams and an of poetry by the social anthropologist and Spanish invite the reader into the the paradise garden. analysis of the techniques of his flower Tom Lowenstein. Lesley Harrison’s vivid experience of unfamiliar words, From here, we are invited to read studies which form part of ‘Sour Grapes’. close scrutiny of the culture of mariners scripts and mythologies. Through Dickinson in the light of Milton Thus, we move from the common who dare pass over the steep shallows Ovid, we come to Proserpina and her and Hamilton Finlay. Vogel’s analysis wayside summer flower to a study of of North Sea territories reminds me of transformations, analysed with particular of Dickinson’s Eden is her way of the way poetic language works. The Lowenstein’s detailing of the mythology attention to Rosetti’s and Swinburne’s understanding the sexuality and sensuality name, the whiteness and William’s poem, of the Arctic. The range of ambition in response to this character. Proserpina as celebrated in her poems. inspire Vogel to a discussion of the flower ‘Disappearance’ is immense. Characters links us to Mary and through her flower ‘Honey’ exemplifies Vogel’s interest in and the female body. The role and nature range from surfers to trawlermen. Chosen meadow, to Eden. theology and nomenclature. The glossary forms can nod to Becket and Cage with

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 37 REVIEWS distinct words highlit by faded ones and ‘Falling’ is perfect in a sustained series of voice, time and place, there is a consistent New kinds of wild all-but-lost ones. But they can also evoke narrations on ‘free-fall’ in the family. This sensibility. The poet’s skill results in the 20th century ballads of W H Auden: brew is hopped but at least as dry as the the most rewarding aesthetic. Yet, in Antlers of Water districts ales tend to be: individual poems as well as in the Edited by Kathleen Jamie ‘We’ll weave the grasses into hours, overall composition, this is a poet who Canongate (2020) And when the hours are gone ‘but he’d already laced his gene-pool doesn’t mind making a bold stroke. He’s Cottongrass Summer I’ll gather up my coat of earth disrespectful in the best way, able to trust Roy Dennis And take the road alone.’ with a desire for descent.’ the right to re-imagine things. In this guy’s Saraband (2020) world, the most mundane of everyday Review by Kenny Taylor ‘Lizzie Fairy’ is another ballad, this That on-run of the sentence over the activities ring with significance; time in a guid Scots tongue. From oral line break is typical of the most restrained A good anthology is much more than history to logs of past voyages, the source crafting throughout this collection. From ‘And on another day he compared history a book to keep for occasional reference materials are wide in range. Sometimes the the flex in the nib of a family fountain- to bubbles in a pot of porridge, their pechts and sporadic reading. It can surprise, concept seems more crucial than crafted pen to the thought of a beard likened and vanishings. Our mouths across each bowl entertain and give fresh ideas. It can nudge language, especially in the evocation of to biro scratchings, this poet makes must cool that simmering, and eat.’ imagination to move in unexpected ways. the Donald Crowhurst tragic voyage (the confident marks and turns phrases of Antlers of Water is just such a work. subject of many studies - most famously accuracy and wisdom. I’m going to This is from ‘A Month of Teachings’. Its subtitle describes it as writing on those of Tacita Dean). The lost voyaging have to order another couple of copies Any risk of solemnity is disrupted by the Scotland’s nature and environment. Yet artist, Bas Jan Ader, is referenced in a for friends, because I know I’ll want to sheer power of the imagery and judicious that seems too slight a description for photo-based image. Navigating all these return to these engaging sketches of use of a word: ‘birl’ or ‘feart’. In ‘Boxing the diversity of voices, points of view shifts of style, visual and poetic, takes a lives, sad though they can be. Take this Day’ the myth of the robin’s red breast and language from the commissioned significant commitment from the reader. final couplet of McCaffery’s portrait of a becomes, accurately, a ‘tomato soup stain’. writers within it. As its editor and For now, this one is intrigued, but it’s too brickie with ‘back and bladder gone’: That’s not the only risk of cliché, gladly curator, Kathleen Jamie, makes clear in early to say if this is a book that insists taken and so a phrase revitalised. Breaking her introduction, it’s also a call to arms. that you return to dive in deeper. ‘As he crumbles bit by bit, the young spray is a tricky thing to catch on camera She announces it as showcasing ‘a new In stark contrast, ‘Letters to Rosie’ is put up walls all around him.’ or in language but what about this: Scottish nature writing’, which ‘addresses a harmonic series of poems to welcome the realities of our times and examines a daughter. This is fittingly served by a James McGonigal is known and ‘Meantime that fist of sea still pummelled the relationship with our fellow creatures, simple and no-fuss black type on white respected as an academic with, for rock. our beloved and fast-changing landscapes, pages but stapled to a subtle 3 colour example, his biography of Edwin our energy futures, our ancient past.’ cover. There is variety in the chosen Morgan (Sandstone Press) selected as Stars of sweat flew off a boxer’s head. Bold claims, but coming from a writer stanza form, (6 line to five, to four and to the Scottish Research Book of the Year Take that. And that.’ whose work in response to nature and no breaks.) Half rhymes or more irregular in 2011. I’ve enjoyed individual poems, places in both poetry and prose has chiming of sounds are used to strengthen encountered in journals. Now, in this Line-breaks, rhymes or half-rhymes won international acclaim, they need what comes over as an intimate music. It exemplary production, his second from are used only when they add something to be taken seriously; seriously enough all seems felt and artless. The poems are Red Squirrel Press, the publisher has – similar to the approach in Ross Wilson’s for this reader to overcome a long- moving but they v def ain’t artless. The judged cover, colours, paper and design work. When James McGonigal adopts standing dislike of the very term ‘nature verse is thus all the more effective when to complement the expert typography of the haikai form (used for the imagined writing’. I remember, for example, a wee jump is made: Gerry Cambridge. The production does correspondence between poet and attending a reading in Washington DC justice to the considered but adventurous monk Caedmon, Edmund Spenser and a couple of decades ago where Barry ‘I didn’t mention nights work of a master poet. Basil Bunting) I felt no hint of strain or Lopez – one of North America’s most drawing in. I kept it light It’s difficult to describe how this squeezing. Clear observation seems more distinguished writers on nature, the land as the leaf lifted from skilfully judged grouping of six distinct important than any tuning of syllables: and conservation – read D.H. Lawrence’s the gutter in your palm, series of poems is so vital. The form of the poem ‘Snake’. He relished the twists and and you muttered au’um.’ book might sound a bit too well-planned ‘Caedmon Butterflies tackle bent flowers multi-layered meanings of the lines as he if you simply say how the progression of like bairns learning to walk.’ read. Then he put the book down and Like most Mariscat publications, movements is defined. But let’s give that ‘Wonder’ might be the key word to said, raising his eyebrows: “that was by Richie McCaffery’s 32-page collection is a try: appreciate how these words arrest you: D.H. Lawrence – a ‘nature writer’.” a handsome production which leaves you ‘Get Set’ catches slo-mo snapshots of Since then, I’ve come, slowly, to accept with a sense of experiencing something a childhood world speeding by to first ‘I wonder which school those trees all attended that the term can be useful shorthand, much greater than you might have thought loves and first motors. to learn how to doze on one leg, poised.’ while still covering work as varied and possible in such a light package. As with ‘Far-fetched’ takes you further out into surprising as in any other genre. That’s Red Squirrel books, there’s a quiet but a world, caught in shift of intense natural Really, I want to quote from each poem. art; that’s life. What’s also changed since completely appropriate aesthetic. In this light, up in the air and down to the ocean The best way to use the generous space I heard that reading is that across Britain, case, the cover image illustrates the poem as well as glancing on hedgerows. this fine journal provides for discussion is as was already true in the US when I that provides the title but also catches ‘The Desert Mothers’ are notebooks to urge the reader to buy this book too. met Barry Lopez, there are now many the tone of the whole collection. The in verse, imagined from actual historical I’d normally post books I’ve read to folk writers whose published work responds series of personal meditations and family travellers’ narrative. I’m currently corresponding with but I to nature at a time of ever-worsening studies build steadily until, too soon, you ‘Approaching Autumn’ is a series of want this one ready to hand so I’m just environmental crisis. Bookshop shelves, have reached the conclusion. linked verses, composed in the character placing a wee order with Red Squirrel when it’s socially acceptable to peruse This could have taken the form of of three poets of different times but with Press. I’d suggest you do that too if you them, have whole sections devoted to a 1000-page memoire but the amazing a shared sense of place. have a taste for superb craftsmanship, such writing. thing is that all these lives and a deeply ‘Star-Fetched’ has the tone of Neil worn lightly, and lit by both empathy In Scotland, we’ve perhaps been slow personal revelation of a life lit by Young’s ‘After the Goldrush’ and nods and knowledge. But all these poets and to recognise this burgeoning field, with love emerge so naturally. There is no perhaps to the mental high-jinkery publishers need support. In the present some notable contemporary names as suggestion of jam-packing too much in. of Edwin Morgan in seriously playful climate, they seem to me an antidote to exceptions. We recognise past glories – The art is in a straight-talking narration, mode. the disregard for truth and the inability such as Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir, close to matter-of-fact but judiciously ‘In Good Time’ puts a new layer to to empathise displayed again and again Rabbie Burns, Neil Gunn, Norman highlit when it really counts. From the ‘marking time’, with a range of voice from by the ‘leaders’ of both the UK and the MacCaig and Nan Shepherd. Those context, I could suss that a ‘spelk’ is a skelf that of a retreating Roman centurion to USA. n people also lived at times of national and in England’s Northeast. The word ‘peg’ is a Lutheran ‘soul register;’ in Norway. international crisis, including civil unrest as plain as it gets, but in the context of Throughout this range of subjects, and wars, but had little reason to think

38 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 REVIEWS that global systems of life support were linked by a community of interest, but collection of work, but can similarly prod his long career, he’s also talked the talk, going to hell in a handcart because of who can’t be pigeonholed. That applies in the reader to think afresh about nature helping others to think, not simply of human actions. That’s what can distinguish large measure to two of the concluding and environmental issues. I don’t know protecting the wild, but of boosting and present-day writing in this deep-rooted pieces in the anthology. anyone who can match its author, Roy nurturing it. As I found when having the field from what has come before; that’s One is by Amy Liptrot, whose life- Dennis, for breadth of experience of privilege of working with him on a couple part of why this book is so interesting, affirmingly honest work always seems wildlife across the north of Scotland. Since of different boards, he’s often looking to refreshing and challenging. to defy easy categorisation as ‘nature the late 1950s, when he was a warden of the future, not resting on old laurels, and The breadth of writing within it writing.’ Even the title of her piece: the Fair Isle bird observatory (a place he’s coaxing others to do the same. includes prose, poetry and entries that ‘Swimming Away from My Baby’ makes championed ever since, including beyond That’s how it feels with Cottongrass defy easy categorization. That’s the case you want to read it, and what follows the fire that ravaged it early in 2019) he’s Summer. The 52 essays in it (all short) do with Alec Finlay’s extracts ‘From a Place- doesn’t disappoint. been both a practical conservationist and include plenty of details about his life, Aware Dictionary’, where I relished The other is by the multi-talented a refreshingly radical thinker. projects and travels. In some, he shares entries such as ‘ANTHROPOCENE: Karine Polwart, who has the facility In April this year, he celebrated the insights derived from journeys in Europe, us being too much for everything else’ to move from music to stories in live 60th anniversary of seeing his first North America, China and Japan with and FOLKLORE: a supernatural glow performance and recording studio, and osprey, while wardening at the RSPB’s people who have devoted their lives to that diminishes from generation to here, to write prose that also shifts in Operation Osprey at Loch Garten. In better understanding creatures such as generation’. Our own Northwords Now form as the narrative unfolds. It draws the decades since, he helped to pioneer wolves, eagles, lynx and more. In most, former editor, Chris Powici, kicks off the on her friendship with fellow band satellite tracking of ospreys, greatly added he grounds his wider knowledge in the whole collection. Or maybe I should say member, Inge Thomson from Fair Isle, to wider public awareness of this iconic soil and seas of the north, whether high pedals it forward, as he considers wind incorporating some of Inge’s lyrics from a bird and wrote books about them. But tops, forests, coastal lowlands or islands. turbines and species re-introductions song cycle album and performance called you can’t define Roy’s work by ospreys; And (like another noted elder who’s been while cycling the Braes of Doune. ‘Da Fishing Hands’. nor confine it. ‘Restoration’ is more the keeping very active recently: hats off to Sir A further Northwords Now link comes Karine melds these with her own word I’d use to give a flavour. He’s the David) he’s focused on what could yet be through Lesley Harrison’s perceptions of experiences to consider island knowledge renaissance man of Scottish conservation, possible, if people have the courage and land, water and creatures on the Angus of land and sea, declines of seabirds and happiest to be hands-on and making vision to shape new ways of respecting coast, pared-down with a deft minimalism the untimely loss of the young Fair Isle changes to benefit wild creatures and and healing the world we share with so of line and word choice, such as ‘dunnock writer, Lise Sinclair. There’s a warmth in their habitats, not restricted to one place, many other forms of life. a subsong,/full of ornament/a choir of her style that seems to make the words one species, one idea. The 52 essays are best savoured in one’. Part of the pleasure in the anthology glow from the page. If this is new nature From re-introduction of sea eagles, red small bites. I recommend at least one a is the way that a turn of page to a new writing, we need more of both that kites and beavers to more recent work to day, taken over a couple of months, to writer gives a different voice and adds passion and compassion, I reckon. This help red squirrels and wildcats re-establish refresh ideas, keep the eco-blues at bay to the sense that – yes – this could be anthology is an invigorating start. in parts of the Highlands, Roy’s been and learn from a maestro. n a movement in progress, with writers Cottongrass Summer is a very different there to walk the walk. But throughout

ot so long ago, McPhee was He looked at her and knew immediately able to travel much further McPhee’s Day Trip that love had not vanished completely Nafield on his jaunts, but he was from his world. getting on in years now and of a mind to The two stood there, clearly beguiled follow the line of least resistance when Story by John Robertson Nicoll by one another. McPhee thought that taking his pleasures. Besides, he never with her fine golden hair and her beatific got tired of the ferry trip from Oban to ✯ smile, she was the most innocent and lovely his beloved Mull. The island was visible creature he had ever seen. She stretched from Oban harbour and today it sat blue out her hand. A gift? he thought. A gift and purple in the early summer sun like would have preferred to have this space suited him fine. He looked back across from this little angel? Surely kindness, like some wonderful promise waiting to be all to himself. the water. If Oban was getting further love, was not dead after all. delivered. It may have been his advancing years away, Mull was getting closer. His heart “Shelley, get away from that dirty, It was the start of the tourist season and that made McPhee so grumpy and raced. All that the place meant to him filthy craitur!” the ferry was appropriately busy. McPhee hypercritical but he was sure that the came to mind in one glowing image after Their moment was invaded by a large watched the cars, lorries and vans jostling holiday crowds got louder and coarser another and he was looking forward to woman with a wide expanse of bare for parking space on the deck below with with every passing year: men with beer dining out in Tobermory again, but now midriff and a tattoo of a bluebird on her a certain amount of distaste. He resented bellies and trousers that ended just below that the ferry was halfway between its two right breast. She lunged at the child and all the noise and the fumes tainting this, the knees, women with…. well pretty destinations his mood began to darken. pulled her away with some force making his favourite part of his world. For the much the same really and every year People were still respecting his space, as her drop the crust of her cheese sandwich. umpteenth time, he wondered why people more of those infernal electronic devices they put it nowadays, but that very fact Then she returned to kick out at McPhee couldn’t leave their ghastly metal boxes that beeped and whirred and whistled. only served to remind him how alone he with such force that one of her sandals behind for one day. Did they actually like It was all too much. There should be no was these days. He was the wrong side of went flying, but McPhee had already living in these metal cages? Did they draw room for such things in this little corner middle age and many of his family and risen high in the air above the Mull- some sort of comfort from them – was it of heaven. friends had passed away – at least one of bound ferry. He hovered for a moment a security thing with them? He decided Instinctively, he moved as close to the them in violent circumstances - and these out of respect for his earth-bound angel that if he lived to be a hundred he would back of the boat as he could and hoped days he barely saw any of the old crowd. and hoped that she would feel the rays never understand the human race, so against hope that people would respect his There was a cloud above his head now, of love that he was sending down to her. he decided to give up trying - at least space. He thought it might keep people at both literally and metaphorically. He Her mother was still holding her hand but for now. He looked up at the blue sky a distance if he scowled at them and so was staring at the deck, appalled by how with her free one she waved and smiled overhead and his spirits soared. for a while he looked from left to right suddenly sunshine can become shadow in at him. It was enough for McPhee. This The ferry left the pier bang on time and and back again with a malevolent glare this life, when he became aware of a small kindness would give him comfort for a made its stately way out across the water. etched on his features so strongly that he figure standing just in front of him. It was long time to come. McPhee closed his eyes and breathed-in feared he might never be able to erase it. a child of about four or five in a little Heartened, he would head for sweet air. He was just thinking that he The ploy seemed to work. It was as if yellow summer dress. She stood smiling Tobermory now and the overflowing was approaching Nirvana when the day there was an invisible border running the at him – a small sun to counter the cloud bins behind Burrell’s Seafood Restaurant. trippers started pouring on to the upper width of the deck between McPhee and filling his head. She had crossed his ‘line’ Dining out in Tobermory was always a deck. He wished they wouldn’t. He the holiday hordes and for a while this because she didn’t know that he had one. pleasure. n

Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020 39 CONTRIBUTORS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Helen Allison lives in Forres. Her first poetry English and Doric. Originally from Aberdeen a th’ann. Chaidh ceithir leabhraichean dhen Loretta Mulholland recently completed collection, Tree standing small, was published in and now living in Kelso, she still finds writing bhàrdachd aige ’fhoillseachadh “Famhair: an MLitt in Writing Practice and Study 2018 by Clochoderick Press. Second collection in in Doric easier and more expressive. Agus Dàin Ghàidhlig eile”, “Fleòdragan at Dundee University. She is currently seed stage. Find her on Twitter @h_allison_poet Cabair”, “Rudan Mi-bheanailteach is an researching the John Murray Archives, held Lydia Harris lives on Westray. In 2017, she Cothroman” is “Ràithean airson Sireadh”. at the National Library of Scotland. Juliet Antill lives on the Isle of Mull. held a Scottish Book Trust New Writer’s Her poems have featured in Magma, New Award. Her latest pamphlet Painting the Stones D.B. MacInnes writes and plays uilleann Robin Munro now lives on Bute, after Writing Scotland and the ezine Antiphon. Back was published in 2019 by Maria Isakova pipes on the Skye croft held by his family since running a bookshop in Galloway. His two Bennett of Coast to Coast to Coast. 1860. He is currently working on a novel called published poetry collections are The Land Valerie Beattie is a Northwords Board member ‘The Redemption of Quany MacColl’ . of the Mind and Shetland like the World. and developed UHI’s first undergraduate Lesley Harrison is a member of the literature degree. Her research interests include Northwords Board. Her most recent collections Màrtainn Mac An t-Saoir Rugadh John Robertson Nicoll is from Broughty Ferry. Gothic studies and she is working to bring are Disappearance (Shearsman, 2020) Màrtainn Mac an t-Saoir ann an 1965 His book The Balloon Man in Edinburgh (Blue an accepted book draft to publication. and Blue Pearl (New Directions, 2017). agus thogadh ann an Lèanaidh e. Tha Ath- Ocean Publishing) was published in 2013. Aithne, Gymnippers Diciadain, An Latha Alison Bell lives in Aberdeenshire. Her short Jennifer Morag Henderson’s biography As Fhaide, Dannsam led Fhaileas, A’ Challaig, Ian A. Olson is a long-retired Aberdeen doctor, fiction grows from the landscape around her, and Josephine Tey: A Life was acclaimed by the Seo Challò, Cala Bendita ’s a Bheannachda, writing poetry and on Scottish traditional from her conviction that most of us are more Observer, Independent and Telegraph as a Book of Tuath Air A’ Bhealach agus Samhradh ’78 culture, history and balladry. From a Caithness hefted to the land than we ever understand. the Year. www.jennifermoraghenderson.com am measg nan leabhar a thug e a-mach. family, he was GP in Muir of Ord.

Simon Berry is a former editor of The Robert Alan Jamieson is a Shetlander who Anne MacLeod has published two novels Chris Powici’s most recent collection This Scotsman book pages, president of Scottish has published five novels and whose poetry and two poetry collections. Her Standing by Weight of Light, is published by Red Squirrel. PEN and board member of 7:84 Scotland. He has been translated into a dozen European Thistles collection was shortlisted for a Saltire First He is a contributor to the Antlers of Water has a poetry collection A Mask for Grieving languages. A former co-editor of Edinburgh Book Award and her first novel, The Dark Ship, anthology (Canongate 2020 -see p38). Chris and biography of Victorian poet, Alexander Review, he recently retired from teaching was nominated for Saltire and Impac awards. edited Northwords Now from 2010 to 2017 and Smith, published by FTRR Press. creative writing at Edinburgh University. His teaches creative writing for the University of collection Plague Clothes (2020) is the first Caoimhin MacNèill Tha Caoimhin MacNèill Stirling and The Open University. A new poetry Sharon Black is a prize-winning poet from publication from the new Taproot Press. na òraidiche aig Oilthigh Shruighlea. Am measg collection is due from Red Squirrel in 2021. Glasgow who lives in a remote valley of the nan leabhraichean aige tha The Brilliant & Cévennes mountains. She is an editor of Paula Jennings’ most recent poetry Forever agus The Diary of Archie the Alpaca. Cynthia Rogerson’s latest novel Wait Pindrop Press, a poetry publisher ‘based between collection is Under a Spell Place, published Sgrìobh e am fiolm Hamish: The Movie. for me Jack (written under the pseudonym Scotland and France’. Her third collection is by HappenStance. She facilitates poetry Addison Jones) is published by Sandstone. forthcoming, and she is working on a fourth, writing workshops in Fife and Edinburgh. Richie McCaffery lives in Alnwick, about the Cévennes. www.sharonblack.co.uk Northumberland and has a PhD in Scottish Mark Ryan Smith lives in Shetland. His Antonia Kearton is originally from Edinburgh literature from Glasgow University. His most poems have appeared in various places, Adam Boggon grew up in Culross, Fife. and now lives in Strathspey, where she makes recent collection is the pamphlet First Hare from including New Writing Scotland, Gutter, He was shortlisted for the John Byrne Award landscape photographs, has recently started writing Mariscat Press (2020). He also has two book- Ink Sweat and Tears and Snakeskin. in May 2020. www.adamboggon.co.uk poetry again after a decades-long gap, and is length collections from Nine Arches Press, training to become a counsellor/psychotherapist. the more recent being Passport (2018). Ian Stephen’s selected poems maritime is Gail Brown from Caithness, writes the published by Saraband, as is his novel A Book blog Wellies on the School Run. Her first Alistair Lawrie was born in Peterhead and now Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Tidsear of Death and Fish. Waypoints (Bloomsbury) novel, Castles of Steel and Thunder, is due lives in Stonehaven. He co-edited Glimmer Of ealain air chluainidh ann an Inbhir Nis. was shortlisted for the Saltire non- to be published in November 2020. Cold Brine, leads Mearns Writers, is published fiction book of the year award, 2017. in The Interpreter’s House and Poets’ Republic Hugh McMillan is a poet from Dumfries and Becs Boyd is an artist, ecologist and writer in and won the William Soutar Prize 2016. Galloway. Through lockdown he ran a daily Kenneth Steven grew up in Highland Perthshire the Highlands (www.becsboyd.co.uk). Her most video blog called #plagueopoets which has and now lives on Seil in Argyll. He has pubished recent exhibition featured on Projectroom2020. Ingrid Leonard comes from Orkney, been described as “unique” and “wonderful”. 14 poetry collections, writes novels and for Her book The Jacobites and Russia 1715-1750 was which inspires much of her poetry. Her children, broadcasts on the BBC and translated the commended at the Saltire Society Awards in 2003. poems have appeared in Brittle Star, The Jon Miller lives near Ullapool and has Nordic-prize-winning novel The Half Brother from Interpreter’s House and New Writing Scotland. had poetry published in a variety of Norwegian to English www.kennethsteven.co.uk Maoilios Caimbeul Bàrd agus sgrìobhaiche às Scottish magazines, including New Writing an Eilean Sgitheanach. An leabhar mu dheireadh Karen MacDonald lives with her husband Scotland, The Dark Horse and Chapman. ‘S ann à iomadh ceàrn a tha Eòghan Stiùbhart, a thàinig bhuaithe ’s e An Dà Anam / In Two and various other creatures up a wee glen in sgrìobhadair tùsanach a’ fuireach san Àrd-Achaidh Minds,conaltradh bàrdail Gàidhlig / Gaeilge Perthshire, with no internet but lots of pencils. Deborah Moffatt À Vermont (USA), a’ ann an Inbhir Nis, tha a’ chiad chruinneachadh air a cho-sgrìobhadh le Diarmuid Johnson. fuireach ann am Fìbha a-nis. Bidh dà cho- aige “Beum-sgeithe” a’ tighinn a dh’aithghearr. Rugadh Lodaidh MacFhionghain ann chruinneachadh aice air fhoillseachadh ann Leonie Charlton lives in Argyll. Her travel an Inbhir Nis, Eilean Cheap Breatainn. ‘S e an 2019, “Eating Thistles,” (Smokestack Zoë Strachan is an award-winning author of memoir Marram was published by Sandstone oide, òraidiche, fear-ciùil, bàrd, is seinneadair Books), agus fear ann an Gàidhlig. novels, stories, libretti and essays. She is Reader Press in 2020. Her first poetry pamphlet in Creative Writing at University of Glasgow. will be published by Cinnamon Press in January 2021. www.leoniecharlton.co.uk Ian Tallach Having previously worked as a paediatric doctor, Ian is now Kay Clive lives in Edinburgh and has Be part of the medically retired with MS. He lives in roots in the Fraserburgh area. She has been Glenurquhart, as do his young family. interested in the story of Lorna Moon (a distant relative) for many years. Northwords Now community Alice V. Taylor is an illustrator and printmaker from the Black Isle www.alicevtaylor.co.uk Anne Elizabeth Edwards from Lewis had a long career as a midwife and often Northwords Now is published but twice a year. Full of literary good- Mark Vernon Thomas lives deep in the Machars, Southwest Scotland. He’s been uses poems or dense, word-rich prose as ness though its pages may be, we know that it won’t be able to inspiration. The Box is Only Temporary was published in Takehe, The Poet’s Republic, is a inspired by Anne Sexton’s eponymous poem. sustain readers across some of the months between issues. That’s prize winner in the Federation of Writers where our social media can be a boon, helping writers and readers 2020 poetry competition, and included in Mark Edwards lives in Lossiemouth and is local alike to share news of events, publications, and even some new Scottish Library Champions 2020 collection. to Lossiemouth. He has two kindle books on work in print or video. amazon, Half My Life and A Short Time Dead. Roderick Watson has written widely on modern Scottish literature. His poems feature Graham Fulton is from Paisley. His many Our Facebook membership at www.facebook.com/groups/north- in numerous anthologies and two main poetry books and pamphlets have been published wordsnow grows by the week, and our Twitter @NorthwordsNow collections. A new collection is forthcoming. over many years by Smokestack, Red Squirrel, has, for example, encouraged some writers to submit more flash Penniless,Rebel Inc, Polygon, Clochoderick, fiction in the past year. Roseanne Watt is an award-winning writer, Salmon Poetry and Pindrop Press. filmmaker and musician from Shetland. Her dual-language debut collection, Moder Dy, Mandy Haggith is a writer and environmental Thanks to our funders, Creative Scotland and Bòrd na Gàidhlig, was published by Polygon in May 2019. activist who lives in Assynt, where trees grow we’ll be making further upgrades to our website in the next few down to the sea. www.mandyhaggith.net months. Initially, this issue will go online in the form that the past Christie Williamson is a Shetlandic poet, translator and essayist based in Glasgow. His latest Simon W. Hall is a headteacher and writer few issues have taken, followed by changes to make it easier for publication is Doors tae Naewye, Luath, 2020. from Orkney. His books include The History users to access a range of resources, including audio-visual mate- of Orkney Literature (Birlinn, 2010) and rial. One way to be alerted to new developments on the site will be Joanna Wright lives in Ullapool and The Orkney Gruffalo (Itchy Coo, 2015). to be part of our social media community. Need we say more? writes alongside painting and managing An Talla Solais (Ullapool Visual Arts). Edith Harper writes poetry and stories in

40 Northwords Now Issue 40, Autumn–Winter 2020