The Chagall Winnocks: With Other Scots Poems and Ballads of Europe

From the forests of Finland to the plain of Lombardy, from a Scottish beach to a river island in Hungary,Tom Hubbard deploys the riches of the Scots language to explore that tragicomic space we call Europe. The poems are variously tender and mischievous in their reatment of our all-too-human foibles - Hubbard believes that an international outlook and a parochial one (centred, in his case, on his native Fife) can be mutually enriching. The poems in THE CHAGALL WINNOCKS draw on the folklore of many European countries, not least that of Scotland - and indeed it is a retelling of a Fife legend, which opens this collection of poems, which have grown out of his travels in, and study of, the continent as a whole. Many of these poems tell stories, in the form of ballads or the reworking of traditional tales; conversely, this collection of poems could be seen as a series of short stories, albeit in verse form.Hubbard's new collection is a bold statement of faith in the Scots language, and echoes Hugh MacDiarmid's remarks on 'the unique blend of the lyrical and the ludicrous' which is possible in Scots, 'its Dostoevskian debris of ideas - an inexhaustible quarry of subtle and significant sound' ('A Theory of Scots Letters').

Table of Contents:
Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vi TALES O A STRAVAIGER 1 SCOTLAND Mephistophelean Ballant- Scherzo on ane Fife Legend 4 FINLAND The Lass Come Back Frae Trystin Wi Her Jo 7 DENMARK Homage til Carl Nielsen 9 Kierkegaard's Faust 13 BELGIUM Watter o the Auld Canals 15 Leuven Europa 17 FRANCE Oor Burgh 20 The Erseboond 23 The Colourist 25 SPAIN Sonnet 27 ITALY Sonnet 29 Twa Poems on the Commedia dell'Arte: Arlecchino o Bergamo Arlecchino Ironicomalinconico 31 The Angel o Duende 33 The Arlecchino Phenomenon 36 PubWeb 18/12/2012 10:41 http://www.nielsenbookdata.com/pubweb/PubBookDetail?isbn=9781907676215&view=true Page 3 of 3 Contents: GERMANY The Legend o the Leddy Richmodis 40 The Chagall Winnocks in Sanct Stephen's Kirk, Mainz 42 The Speirits 44 Fable o the Bird, the Cat, and the Pibroch 45 SWITZERLAND Schaffhausen Satori 47 The Emmick and the Gresslowper 51 Tamangur 54 AUSTRIA Fir My Cat 57 HUNGARY The Legend o the Leddy Margret 60 Minority Status 62 POLAND The Lyart Laird 65 Gdansk December 69 RUSSIA Raskolnikov 71 UKRAINE Scheherazade 73 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 74 WORDLEET / GLOSSARY 79 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

About the Author :
TOM HUBBARD was Lynn Wood Neag Distinguished Visiting Professor of Scottish Literature at the University of Connecticut for the spring semester of 2011 and Professor invite at the Stendhal University, Grenoble, in 2011-12, and a Writer-in-Residence at the Chateau Lavigny (Ledig-Rowohlt Foundation), Vaud, Switzerland, in the spring of 2012. He is founding editor of an online magazine, THE PATHHEAD REVIEW. His two latest collections, The Nyaff (Windfall Books) and The Merry Dancers (with Sheena Blackhall; Malfranteaux Concepts) have also appeared in 2012. His novel, Marie B. (Ravenscraig Press), based on the life of the Ukrainian painter Marie Bashkirtseff, was shortlisted for a Saltire year award.

Review :
'At stake is not just parity of poetic esteem for Scots but the status of the spoken and written word in general.' MICHAEL KERRIGAN, The Scotsman The Chagall at wrocht the winnocks in the sang at gies the haill buik its teitle wes a Jewish limner at wes born in Belarus, bade whiles in Russia, whiles in France an whiles in America, shapit the winnocks for a kirk in Germany, an nou inspeirit a braw sang frae a Scottish makar. Is thon no cosmopolitanism? Here we hae as bonnie a pruif as ye coud wiss tae finn o hou the Scottish speirit is maist national whan maist international. Scottish cultuir in its best times tuik whit it hed need o frae ither airts, an paid back the debt wi interest. Scotland mairches shouther tae shouther wi fowerteen ither kintras in Tam Hubbard's winnersome ingetherin.' J. DERRICK McCLURE, Lallans