Malachy Posted July 8, 2007 Report Share Posted July 8, 2007 Well Jen Hadfield lives in Shetland now, as does Donald S Murray, an excellent poet from the Western Isles. I think both should qualify. Some info on Donald Murray here: http://www.hie.co.uk/arts-showcase-poetry-from-shetland.htmlActually, not much info there - he has lots of pamphlets/books anyway. And is very good - the poem on that page is one of my favourites. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malachy Posted July 8, 2007 Report Share Posted July 8, 2007 I've also just noticed that Robert Alan Jamieson is not on the list, which seems a rather major oversight, given that he's probably Shetland's most famous living poet. One of his novel's, A Day at the Office, was also included in the list of the top 100 Scottish books of all time recently. http://www.geocities.com/rajamies/ (bit out of date)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Alan_Jamieson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ex-isle Posted July 12, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 12, 2007 Well Jen Hadfield lives in Shetland now, as does Donald S Murray, an excellent poet from the Western Isles. I think both should qualify. Some info on Donald Murray here: http://www.hie.co.uk/arts-showcase-poetry-from-shetland.htmlActually, not much info there - he has lots of pamphlets/books anyway. And is very good - the poem on that page is one of my favourites. Thanks for these good ideas, Malachy. Have added Mundair, Hadfield, Murray, Jamieson - and a few others - total now 128 and running. Please do amend/add/update/make further suggestions as you see fit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted July 16, 2007 Report Share Posted July 16, 2007 174 articles in the category now. Well done Shetlinkers for all the suggestions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ex-isle Posted July 17, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2007 It is well on the way to becoming a serious research tool, but a lot of the entries are still pretty skeletal. What's good is the hyperlinking - the web allows authors to be directly linked to pages on the places they came from and lived in, so you see that they're not just Shetland authors, but Dunrossness authors, or Uyeasound or wherever, and from there the links go all ways, into history and so on - connect them to other writers, so the sense of a joined-up, literary community and tradition emerges and they are set in some kind of context. Now, if the broad community was to contribute what it knows, by filling out the skeletal entries and bringing even more writers to the table, then it would be getting somewhere ... for there's always more writing out there in the world than the libraries are aware of, including manuscripts and the like ... and wouldn't it be great to discover a gem from on top of someone's wardrobe? Great uncle's whaling journal, grand aunt's days in service: all good ... That would be one task: to list the writers, find out who they were, where they lived and what they did. The second would be to analyse all the writing. Availability of texts is one concern, reader time another. But no doubt there are folk well placed to write about many of them now, and again, if it was a community drive to read the rest and write something brief about them, it would be managable. Shetland's own 'Big Read' ... A third task would be to do what is being discussed on the Language Revival thread re Jakobsen's dictionary - to scan the out of copyright texts and make them available on the net, at least the key ones, such as Basil Ramsay Anderson, Jessie Saxby, Haldane Burgess and the like, those that are hard to come by. Again, this is quite a big task, but with a small army of equipped volunteers - a bank of scanners - it's not so daunting. Those, plus what is in print, would be the key reading. Then, with the basic Shetland canon established and key texts available, it would be possible for anybody interested in exploring the subject area to wander the web and find interesting, supportive stuff - and possible too for tutors to run formal courses based on this material, anywhere in the world. Masters in Shetland Language & Literature at Dunedin, anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
da Trookir Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 Then, with the basic Shetland canon established and key texts available, it would be possible for anybody interested in exploring the subject area to wander the web and find interesting, supportive stuff - and possible too for tutors to run formal courses based on this material, anywhere in the world. Masters in Shetland Language & Literature at Dunedin, anyone? Ja ja, A'm lippinin dat day'll no be lang. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malachy Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 Then, with the basic Shetland canon established and key texts available, it would be possible for anybody interested in exploring the subject area to wander the web and find interesting, supportive stuff - and possible too for tutors to run formal courses based on this material, anywhere in the world. Masters in Shetland Language & Literature at Dunedin, anyone? The UHI run a Masters course in 'Literature of the Highlands and Islands' - maybe worth speaking to them about the project...I was thinking of doing the course myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
da Trookir Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 The UHI run a Masters course in 'Literature of the Highlands and Islands' - maybe worth speaking to them about the project...I was thinking of doing the course myself. I doot dat'll aa be Gaelic - Ossian MacPherson an aa. Or do dey hae a Shetlan bit o it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ex-isle Posted July 19, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 The UHI run a Masters course in 'Literature of the Highlands and Islands' - maybe worth speaking to them about the project...I was thinking of doing the course myself. I doot dat'll aa be Gaelic - Ossian MacPherson an aa. Or do dey hae a Shetlan bit o it? No far wrang, boy ... there's an option on the Culture of the North Atlantic Rim, whatever that entails, but no mention of Shetland per se. But there's enough material in Shetland's literature alone for full year long course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malachy Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 The course leader is based in Orkney as far as I can recall. There is a Gaelic module, but I think most of it is more general and wide-ranging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ex-isle Posted July 19, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 The course leader is based in Orkney as far as I can recall. There is a Gaelic module, but I think most of it is more general and wide-ranging. It's Donna Heddle, I think. Knew her at uni a bit, long ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ex-isle Posted August 2, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 2, 2007 Just to update, the list of Shetland authors is now over 200 and still growing - and a number of the early articles have been enlarged or amended. But as many of the entries are mere stubs, and many more could do with further information either on the author or their works, there's lots more to be done on the existing 200. If anybody is in a position to help, please do - and if you're unsure how to go about making or editing entries, do PM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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