Translating the Cooler Winds of Summer

School's out for the summer and it's such a relief. I've left June free of trips, so the kids can relax, I can catch up on appointments, studying and house stuff and we can enjoy sleeping in. Though a week in and our schedules are already turned upside down. 

We've had weeks of amazingly warm weather, unusual for Finland. But it's gotten a bit chillier, around 15C which doesn't bother me as I'm not big on extreme heat. Anything over 21C is too hot for me. The birch pollen has eased up, so I can go out and work in the garden and allotment. I've been building veg boxes, but a month without rain means the soil is rock-hard and I can't dig to clear a space for the last one. A bit of rain is always welcomed. 

The writing course I was doing in April for the GloPoWriMo is done, so I'm in the process of seeing what I can salvage and develop through editing. But I miss the excitement of prompts and trying to find a way into them every day. I've been wandering through various poets' and writers' accounts looking for something to inspire me. Even with all my free time, I'm not writing every day, but I still manage to scribble something regularly.  

Every summer I buy a pile of books when I'm travelling. I try to get through them during the rest of the year, but there are always a few that get set aside. I've seen a quote from Umberto Eco recently about not worrying about having unread books which appeals. I think it's kind of like knitters saying they can never finish all their projects or use their entire stash of yarn, it's comforting knowing there's always something I haven't read yet on my shelves. A little adventure waiting. I try to review some of the ones that really grab me. 

I recently picked up one of the books I bought last year and haven't found time to read yet. I originally heard the poet and translator Brian Holton on the Lantern Scottish Poetry podcast last summer and fell in love with his Scots translation of Chinese poets. The way he explained his decisions as a translator and poet just captivated me and the Scots versions brought the two cultures together in such an unexpected way. He drew me into his process which intrigues me with poets and I often wonder how translators work on poetry. 

So I had to buy a copy of his work, choosing Hard Roads and Cauld Hairst Winds from Taproot Press. The collection is translations of the Chinese poets Li Bai and Du Fu who I previously knew nothing about. I've only dipped in a few times, but every poem is so fun and evocative. 'Bouzin Ma Lane Ablow the Moon' is a series of four poems where the poet is drunk and considering the moon, the world around him and being alone. The Scots translation and the theme are reminiscent of Hugh MacDiarmid's poem 'Drunk Man Looks at a Thistle' or Robert Burns. With the translation of place names to Scots it's easy to forget this is a 7th-century Chinese poet who is speaking, the situation and emotion are so recognisably modern. I really loved the melding of worlds in these poems.

Publication news: I was recently published in thi wurd's anthology, Earthly Rewards, a mix of poetry, fiction and experimental writing. It's an honour to be included in such a brilliant collection of writers in such a beautiful, substantial publication.

I'm having a lovely, quiet weekend of writing and a slow working through of small jobs. I wish you some time to yourself as well. Relish it.  

Scotstober: Days 27-31, The End

Last of my #Scotstober round-ups. It's late due to me starting a new role at work and just being so tired every evening. But I managed to keep up, though I missed mervaill as I did neep and tumshie separately. 

Word of the Day 27: 'sklent' which means meaning things to do with slanted or sideways, including a sideways glint of light or look, or to move sideways. Willie Hershaw is a contemporary poet, musician and playwright working in Scots. His poem captures the action of a night sky with the verb use of sklent perfectly. 

Starry Nicht

Stars sae heich

abuin the muin

cauld and changeless

sklentan doun.

Stars o frost

bruckle as braith

kyth like howp

melt like faith.

Word of the Day 28: 'bauchle' - an old shoe or slipper. This poem by Sir Alexander Gray is not what I expected from an economist, but his poem 'Scotland' rings beautifully to this poet missing her adopted home. 

This is my country,

The land that begat me.

These windy spaces

Are surely my own.

A contemporary of MacDiarmid, Gray also translated many European poems into Scots. His poem 'Grief' is a touching elegy. 

Grief

What ails you, you puir auld body?

What gars you greet sae sair?

Hae you tint the man that’s been kind to you

This forty year and mair?

O, I didna greet when I tint him,

Nor yet on the burrel-day;

But though I saw to the hoose and the byre,

God kens that my hert was wae.

But this mornin’ I cam on his bauchles;

What cud I dae but greet?

For I mindit hoo hard he had wrocht for me,

Trauchlin’ wi’ sair, sair feet.

Day 29 'skreich' usually used as shriek, but there are also the phrases 'skreich o lavrocks' or 'skriech o day' meaning daybreak. I've found it in 'Mornin' a translation of Du Fu's poem in Chinese by Brian Holton a Scots translator and poet. Originally published in The Scores Journal.

Mornin

translated from the classical Chinese

Ane

Skreich o day at the sunnyside o the Southron Palace,

Rimie air keps a thousan rigs an bens;

Nou a kintra bodie is traivellin his lane,

Trees an haar convoyin him i the dawin.

A braw merlin passes seilintlike owreheid,

A hungert corbie comes eident doun ti feed;

A’m that dwaiblie A’ll niver muve nae mair,

A leaf tremmles, faas on the river puil.

Twa

A sail on the watterfit sets oot i the grey dawin,

Ma outlan yett’s steikit conter the cauld;

In tuim shaws, yalla leafs dounfaa,

In this lown kintra, an oncome o white sea-maas.

The pedisters is weit, but gey droukit nae mair,

The lift fairs, the clouds gae hauf-roads awa;

On Carlin Braes whit an unco winter it’s been,

Yestreen on a suddentie, hurls an hurls o thunner!

Day 30 Word of the Day 'mervaill' was difficult because it's an old word, not really used after the 1700s. It means a miracle or to wonder at something. To be honest, I'm too tired to scour old Scots texts trying to find it. So we'll move on to easier beasts. 

Day 31 'tumshie or neep' which means turnip. Scots used to carve turnips for lanterns for Halloween. I've tried it once and it was really difficult because they are so hard. 

For neep I found a sweet poem by Gerry Cambridge 'Field Days', not all in Scots, but it has a great sense of character with the use of Scots. Gerry edits the great The Dark Horse Magazine which has promoted many Scottish poets over the years.

Field Days

Old Davie still did much farm work by hand.

Tae thin neeps, ye gae up an doon thae rows.

Leave jist yin each six inches, sae it grows.

The thought of lunch was a breeze-fanned island,

What is the time? our common famous question.

The shrinking patch of field still to be weeded

was joy and thought we’d be no longer needed.

He’d blow through his lips: Gerad, ye’re the best yin

O thae young uns that come here!

                                                        Or biggest fool

I sometimes thought, those languid days

After the last exams, when I skipped school.

But no jam pieces nor hot tea’s tasted more

Significant than that field’s, and strongest praise

The two green pounds each day’s end, my limbs sore.

And for tumshie, which can also mean a foolish person, I used a quote from a poem by Janet Paisley "tushie waled tae dree the weird, / poued frae a cauld yirth." It's about a girl digging up turnips. I couldn't find the whole poem though it was printed in The Hunterian Poems, poems written on items in Glasgow Unviersity's Hunterian Gallery. 

Janet Paisley was another poet I worked with in my time in Scottish publishing. She sadly passed recently, but her work and her approach to writing was important when I first started out. 

And done. I have to admit, I'm relieved as it was hard keeping up with the challenge. I learned so much about Scots and about Scottish literature, names I'd never come across, poems and poets that touched and inspired me. Thanks to Dr Michael Dempster for organising #Scotstober and to all the writers, artists, translators, academics and everyone interested in Scots who took part.