‘Shetland wis won by Harald Hårfagre, in da days whan
da Vikings wir settin oot in aa da aerts wi dir axes,
longboats and stinkin haps tied aboot dir backs. Dis cam eftir
da time dat giants roamed an fokk wid wakken in
dir beds tae hear bairns greetin wi a big wan clawed trow
comin in da bedroom window, tearin at dir throats.’
‘I used to live here. I used to work in that care home. The way they lay, the comfort they took in instinctive behaviours when they could do little else. They died a long time ago. Their families will remember them, but they probably don’t imagine that I do too… Sometimes with dazzling clarity, I see that 100 years isn’t so much. It’s all connected. And things that feel ancient become sisters or aunties.’
– from ‘Part 1’ and ‘Part 2’, It Disappears In Blue and Red and Gold
Helen Nisbet makes a return to family history and memories of Shetland and the displaced reverberations in her contemporary life.
Dialecty, conceived by Maria Fusco with The Common Guild, considers the uses of vernacular forms of speech and writing, exploring how dialect words, grammar and syntax challenge and improve traditional orthodoxies of critical writing.
Publication in December 2018 at a launch event celebrating the Dialecty series:
‘Sometimes Here Has No Walls’
Saturday 8 December 2018, 15:00 – 18:00
The Common Guild
21 Woodlands Terrace
Glasgow, G3 6DF
along with:
New Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border
Harry Josephine Giles & Martin O’Leary
ISBN 978 1 906012 92 2
Skrubolz Garbillkore
Robert Herbert McClean
ISBN 978 1 906012 94 6
Thresholds: A Prosody of Citizenship
Lisa Robertson
ISBN 978 1 906012 97 7
Enn Gramaten
Natasha Soobramanien & Luke Williams
ISBN 978 1 906012 95 3
Notes on Just Back from Los Angeles: A Portrait of Yvonne Rainer
Adam Pendleton
ISBN 978 1 906012 96 0