Scottish PEN New Writing

A sad thought that can be danced

scottishpen — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:59:53 +0000

Kapka Kassabova

Kapka Kassabova was born and raised in Communist Bulgaria and emigrated to New Zealand with her family as a teenager in the early 1990s. She graduated from Sofia’s French College and two New Zealand universities, and in 2005 she moved to Scotland. Kapka is the author of the childhood memoir Street Without a Name (Portobello 2008) and the poetry collections Someone else’s life and Geography for the Lost (Bloodaxe). She was twice the recipient of the Cathay Pacific Travel Writer of the Year award in New Zealand for travel journalism, and has penned the odd travel guide. Her novel Villa Pacifica (Alma Books, 2011) is set in South America, and her new travel memoir Twelve Minutes of Love (Portobello, 2011) is about the Argentine tango as a way of life. She lives between Edinburgh and the Highlands, teaches at Strathclyde University, and writes for The Guardian, The Sunday Times, the Scottish Review of Books, and Vogue.

A sad thought that can be danced

Ten years ago, I was a young East European émigré living in New Zealand and caught between cultures, Old and New Worlds, two passports and four languages, the end of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of the 21st century. One night, I walked into a bar and saw a couple embracing on the dance floor, to what sounded like a violent accordion. Their feet were taking small steps, their chests were glued together, their hips were rigid, and their faces lost in some fantasy of a better world. They were, of course, doing the tango, and that fantasy soon became mine.

Social Dancin

scottishpen — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:44:14 +0000

Lynsey Calderwood

Lynsey Calderwood rebuilt her life through creative writing following a traumatic brain injury at the age of fourteen. Her autobiography Cracked was published in 2002. She continues to write mostly about love, life, brains and the underdog. ‘Social Dancin’ was previously published in Litro under the title ‘Religious’.

Social Dancin

Social Dancin’s dead romantic. Ah love aw that Gay Gordons an Dashin White Sergeants an huvin tae curtsy tae yir partner; ma favourite dances are the Tango an the Lindy Hop an ah love watchin Fred Astair an Ginger Rogers daein it in aw the auld movies.
Mister Anderson’s oor teacher fur Social Dancin an he’s pure gorgeous: He’s only aboot twenty-odd an he’s got spikey blond hair an blue eyes, an he’s got a pure sexy bum. The only thing ah don’t like aboot Social Dancin at school is that ah never get a decent partner, ah always get aw the mingers an aw the wans that step on yir toes.

A Riot of Toads

scottishpen — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:27:18 +0000

Julian Colton

Julian Colton, a member of Scottish PEN, lives in Selkirk. He has had three collections of poetry published including Everyman Street (Smokestack Publishing, 2009). In 2008 he was CREATE Writer-in-residence for Dumfries and Galloway. He continues to teach poetry and creative writing in schools, most recently as part of the Natural Identity project for the Tolbooth Gallery in Stirling. He co-edits The Eildon Tree the creative writing magazine for the Borders and Beyond.

A Riot of Toads
August 2011

A riot of dead summer toads
Is spaced across the road where I step

Plump but dessicate, out of condition
As if snatched from a strange delicatessen.

Mark O. Goodwin

scottishpen — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:20:05 +0000

The Climb

Mark O. Goodwin (www.markogoodwin.co.uk), born in Devon, moved to Skye in 1994. He is co-author of the collection Dà Thaobh a' Bhealaich/The Two Sides of the Pass (Two Ravens Press, 2009). His poem 'Skye' was selected for the Scottish Poetry Library's Best Scottish Poems 2009 and he is represented in the anthology These Islands, We Sing (Polygon, 2011).

The Climb

The clouds on the Cuillin
gather gracefully
and the eye climbs
the gabbro, seeking ...

Z

scottishpen — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:53:19 +0000

Kusay Hussein

Kusay Hussein is from Baghdad, Iraq, and graduated as a Civil Engineer in 1985. On military service he refused rank and served in two Gulf wars. During the 1980s, his work was published in a variety of Iraqi magazines, but he gave up writing rather than be a horn of the dictatorial regime. He escaped to the UK in 2006 because of the bad security situation and currently lives in Scotland. One of his stories was read at the Scottish Parliament in 2008. He has been published in America and elsewhere. His work in English is in collaboration with Sue Reid Sexton.
Sue Reid Sexton, a Scottish PEN member is the facilitator for Swapping Stories, the creative writing class for the Scotstoun Framework for Dialogue group, whose stories she worked on with the interpreters and submitted to the magazine. Sue Reid Sexton lives and works in Glasgow. She worked as a counsellor specialising in trauma for over a decade and spent another decade working with homelessness. She has been published in a variety of forms, and her first novel, Mavis's Shoe was published by Waverley earlier this year. She has been working with Kusay Hussein on his stories in English for the past two years.

The darkness of the previous night began to recede slowly, leaving the field to the fog which crept silently and invaded everything. It swallowed the road the few hundred yards in front of our bus, forcing the driver to slow down.

The sleeping passengers’ bodies were moving gently to the left and right with the bus’s manoeuvres while the road bumps shook their shoulders like they were dancing the traditional Dabka in their dreams.

The Old Man Lifting a Television

scottishpen — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:47:01 +0000

James McGonigal

James McGonigal (b.1947) has combined professional work in schools and teacher education with editing volumes on Pound and Bunting and on literary relations between Scotland and Ireland. His own poetry has won prizes in both countries. Recent publications include Beyond the Last Dragon: A Life of Edwin Morgan (Sandstone Press, 2010) and Cloud Pibroch (Mariscat Press, 2010) which won the Michael Marks Poetry Pamphlet Award.

The Old Man Lifting a Television

He was thinking how it’s always best to grip a weight
tight in to the chest and let your stomach gain some
balance and momentum

like the motion of a pregnant woman crossing the road ...

Lineage

scottishpen — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:42:50 +0000

Helena Nelson

Helena Nelson is the editor/originator of HappenStance Press, which specialises in poetry pamphlets. Her most recent poetry collection is Plot and Counter-Plot, Shoestring Press, 2010.

Lineage

This is the line
where children place their feet
toppling with futures

where step after step
adults tread before them ...

Islands

scottishpen — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:36:31 +0000

Alison Prince

Alison Prince has lived on Arran for 26 years, having first come to the island as a child and retaining a love for it ever since. She has written biographies of Kenneth Grahame and Hans Christian Andersen and an adult novel, plus about 45 books for children and an early TV series called Trumpton. All details can be found on her website, www.alisonprince.co.uk. However, poetry has always been her first love. She published two collections some years ago then got involved in producing an online magazine for the island, Voice for Arran, but is now concentrating mostly on poetry again. ‘Islands’ won the monthly competition in the Literary Review earlier this summer.

Islands

Missing the sea, cast up like bladderwrack
beyond all tides to dry black in a sun
blocked off by square, high building tops, I am
aching with desperation to be back
on the island ...

As I Trod Those Stairs

scottishpen — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:30:32 +0000

Tessa Ransford

Tessa Ransford (www.wisdomfield.com) is an established poet, translator, literary editor and cultural activist on many fronts over the last forty years, having also worked as founder and director of the Scottish Poetry Library. Tessa initiated the annual Callum Macdonald Memorial Award for publishers of pamphlet poetry in Scotland, now in its twelfth year, with the attendant fairs and website: www.scottish-pamphlet-poetry.com. She has had Royal Literary Fund fellowships in recent years at the Centre for Human Ecology and Queen Margaret University. Tessa's Not Just Moonshine, New and Selected Poems was published in 2008 by Luath Press, Edinburgh and two further books are due in 2012. One of them is poems and translations inspired by the Five Pillars of Islam with Iyad Hayatleh entitled A rug of a thousand colours.

As I Trod Those Stairs

These stone stairs fill me with woe
gray, hard, dark and worn in patches as if
with tears not feet as if with
indestructible despair circled
settled on them from a time when
orphans trod them.

Walking in Tirana

scottishpen — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:14:17 +0000

Morelle Smith

Morelle Smith is a writer of poetry, fiction and travel articles. She also translates from French. She has lived and worked in the Balkans and she travels as much as possible. Her most recent publication is a novel, Time Loop [2010] and a new poetry collection, Gold Tracks, Fallen Fruit will appear in November 2011 from Cestrian Press, Chester. Her blog is Rivertrain. [http://rivertrain.blogspot.com ] She does online work for Scottish Pen, including editing and updating the Scottish Pen blog. [ http://scottish-pen.blogspot.com ].

Walking in Tirana

Fish for sale, all silver and gleaming, piled up on a thin plastic sheet, on the pavement of the Bulevardi Bajram Curri.

All day it seems, I've been walking through the streets. When I leave Rruga Adzeni, cross the pedestrian bridge over the river and head up to the market area, it's morning, it’s bright, the night has washed the air clean of grime and dust and the city sparkles. Up a straight incline, into a warren of small streets, Rruga Tefta Tashko, Rruga Beqir Luga, Rruga Musa Karapici, all dusty brown threads that wind and meander, like summer thoughts ...