shetland

Le Gordon Wells

The Shetland poet Christie Williamson has brought the work of the “Five Writers” in our Extensions initiative to full completion by composing and narrating Shaetlan versions of the four other writers’ documentaries.

Christie writes:

My journey through Island Voices has been one of almost entirely unalloyed delight. Its Shetlophony is perhaps the defining feature of my poetry, though I still of course believe its themes and techniques warrant serious critical exploration.

It is good and healthy to examine one’s own journey as a writer and I was and am grateful of the opportunity to do so – to do so publicly is a bonus. Furthermore, seeing my video translated into other languages was a buzz for me, so I was joyed to be offered the opportunity to make Shaetlan versions of the other poets’ videos.

Any translation project is best approached with a healthy degree of trepidation – language is tricky, is core to us, is more or less entirely arbitrary symbolism. I may be betraying my non linguistic background here, but what I’m saying is I knew I could express my own journey as a writer in Shaetlan – arguably can only express it in the core language of my being.

But could that language carry Donald’s journey? A writer I’ve known and admired for many years, grafted on to the Shetlocultural landscape but whose primary languages of output are English and Gaelic? Or Audrey’s, whose journey through colonialism, race, education and creativity was from a far more radically different background to my own?

Of course, there really aren’t that many ways to find out, and unfinished is always an advance on unbegun, so I started exploring the transcripts and videos, thinking then speaking how the same things can be said in Shaetlan, then finally writing, which is a scarily committal thing, and finally speaking again.

Some years back now, a friend of mine was translating some poems of mine into Spanish ahead of a festival in Latin America, and we both agreed that translation was the ultimate form of close reading. I’ve really enjoyed having the chance to stretch Shaetlan’s function to tell these stories. The most rewarding thing? Has to be getting to know the stories themselves, the resonances and contrasts of how the poets and poems emerged through the languages and cultures which made and make them, and how those languages and cultures evolve through the poets and their work.

Here are the new videos:

Category: shetland

Shaetlan Connections

Donald:

Martin:

Audrey:

Ifor:

Gaelic Word of the Week blog – Easter – a’ Chàisg