Sails made of Salt. New Scottish Writing this Friday, 9th May, Hamburg.

I'm going to be doing this event – 'Sails Made of Salt' – this Friday in Hamburg: all about new Scottish poetry, prose and song on the eve of (possible) independence. It's going to be a multilingual evening, with readings of the English and Scots original texts, and the High German and North German translations. I'll be reading reciting together with my Writers' Room colleague Andreas Greve, who the Hamburger Abendblatt dubbed "The Everyday Poet from Altona" – Andreas remains coy as to whether that bit of praise really pleased him or not.

We'll be reading poems and prose by Tom Leonard, Iain Crichton Smith, Lewis Grassic Gibbons: and of course things that Andreas and I have written ourselves.

Come along! There are bound to be some other ex-pats hanging around, looking for the free drinks.... Place: Alte Dosenfabrik, Stresemannstraße 374, 2nd Floor, Haus B, Hamburg.
Time: this Friday, 9th May, 7 pm
Entrance: €7 (€5 concessions).

Segel aus Salz. Neue schottische Literatur. Freitag 9.5.

Mit großem Dank an Falk Zirkel von Zirkeldesign für die Entwicklung des Story Boat Logos, oben, in 2011. Und an Jerry Knispel, der die Entwicklung des Logos stark unterstützt hat. 'Segel aus Salz' ist der Titel von Iain Crichton Smiths Gedichte, in Elmar Schenkels deutschsprachiger Übersetzung, die 2008 in der Edition Rugerup erschien. Ich bin Elmar Schenkel sehr dankbar, dass er mir seinen Erlaubnis erteilt hat, von seiner Übersetzung diesen Freitag zu lesen.



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Freitag, 9. Mai 2014, 19 Uhr

Segel aus Salz: Neue schottische Literatur am Vorabend der Unabhängigkeit

Performance-Lesung mit Henry Holland und Andreas Greve

Ort: Alte Dosenfabrik, Stresemannstraße 374, Haus B, 2. Stock

 

Wird der schottische Nationalismus so tolerant und international bleiben, wie er sich zurzeit gern präsentiert? Wie haben schottische Schriftsteller in den letzten Jahren zu den nationalen Bestrebungen beigetragen oder sich vom Politikgeschäft distanziert? Im Herbst stimmt Schottland über seine Unabhängigkeit ab – höchste Zeit für den schottischen Übersetzer und Autor Henry Holland, der Sache mit den Schotten und der Nation auf den Grund zu gehen.

​(​

Stimmen auf Norddeutsch

​wird ​

von Andreas Greve

​, "Alltagsdichter aus Altona" (Hamburger Abendblatt)

​ beigetragen​

​

.

)​

Mit seinem satirischen Grußwort „Meine Ernennung zum schottischen Honorarkonsul zu Hamburg“ stimmt Henry Holland auf den Abend ein, bevor er sich der Lyrik von Iain Crichton Smith zuwendet: „Segel aus Salz“, ins Deutsche übertragen von Elmar Schenkel, erschien 2008 in der Edition Rugerup. Holland liest außerdem aus Lewis Grassic Gibbons Romantrilogie „Sunset Song“, Burleske und Teil der klassischen Moderne zugleich, deren deutsche Erstübersetzung in den 1970er Jahren in der DDR veröffentlicht wurde. Textausschnitte werden sowohl in der deutschsprachigen Übersetzung als auch in der Originalfassung vorgetragen. Da kein schottischer Literat die Bühne betreten kann, ohne sie musikalisch wieder zu verlassen, wird Holland den Abend mit zwei Liedern von Hamish Henderson beschließen. Nach der Veranstaltung ist das Publikum herzlich eingeladen, die Diskussion mit Henry Holland bei einem Getränk informell fortzusetzen. Veranstalter: writers' room. Ort: Alte Dosenfabrik, Stresemannstraße 374, Haus B, 2. Stock, 19 Uhr. Eintritt: 7.-/5.-Euro.

To all citizens of Scotland, & Scots in the diaspora, (post you can comment on)

Pilkington Jackson's Bruce statue at Bannockburn: did Pilkington know that Bruce was a thug?

 have any of you not yet read Andy Wightman's The Poor Had No Lawyers: Who owns Scotland and how they got it (2013)? If not, you really should, attentively, in its entirety. By the term 'Citizens of Scotland' I mean all those currently resident in Scotland, irrespective of whether or not these people have got permanent resident status, or whether these people are asylum-seekers or people born in Scotland, whether they're living off benefits or going out to a paid-job everyday. If you argue in detail for intelligent, low-cost policy like Wightman does, then you don't waste your time supporting or enforcing stupid, high-cost policy, like over-policing borders – apparently in Salmond's future models we'll still be paying for an over-policed UK border – or persecuting minorities who can't be squeezed into the template of Mrs & Mr Normal. Wightman's is the first book I've ever read on public policy that's electrified me. He campaigns for diversifying Scottish land-ownership – our current pattern is the most feudal, most concentrated in western Europe – and taxing speculation on urban & rural land, so that people who want to get up & do something with their hands & minds get rewarded. Rather than rewarding those who happen to have the hundreds of thousands spare to invest in chunks of land, do nothing with it and enjoy returns of up to 200% – value added by the economic activity of normal workers, i.e. us – for that doing of nothing.

To all citizens of Scotland, & Scots in the diaspora, (no comments version)

Pilkington Jackson's Bruce statue at Bannockburn: did Pilkington know that Bruce was a thug?

have any of you not yet read Andy Wightman's The Poor Had No Lawyers: Who owns Scotland and how they got it (2013)? If not, you really should, attentively, in its entirety. By the term 'Citizens of Scotland' I mean all those currently resident in Scotland, irrespective of whether or not these people have got permanent resident status, or whether these people are asylum-seekers or people born in Scotland, whether they're living off benefits or going out to a paid-job everyday. If you argue in detail for intelligent, low-cost policy like Wightman does, then you don't waste your time supporting or enforcing stupid, high-cost policy, like over-policing borders – apparently in Salmond's future models we'll still be paying for an over-policed UK border – or persecuting minorities who can't be squeezed into the template of Mrs & Mr Normal. Wightman's is the first book I've ever read on public policy that's electrified me. He campaigns for diversifying Scottish land-ownership – our current pattern is the most feudal, most concentrated in western Europe – and taxing speculation on urban & rural land, so that people who want to get up & do something with their hands & minds get rewarded. Rather than rewarding those who happen to have the hundreds of thousands spare to invest in chunks of land, do nothing with it and enjoy returns of up to 200% – value added by the economic activity of normal workers, i.e. us – for that doing of nothing.