[John Beaton]

In the "Haggis" thread in DT, I mentioned Sorley MacLean, clearly Scotland's greatest recent Gaelic poet, but a formidable force in English translation too.

The western isles of Scotland, which flavour most of his poems, are scenic and imbued with history. (I know them intimately. Also, I've met many people who knew him first-hand. And he is buried in the same Skye graveyard as my mother, father, and several other relatives. So I feel a connection with his work.)

He captured some of the music of Gaelic in English and he recited his poems lyrically and passionately.

It's not surprising, then, that his work would have resulted in a sort of posthumous collaboration involving a musician who died shortly after the work was produced, Sorley's recorded recitation, and an animator/photographer to produce a video of Sorley's most famous poem, "Hallaig", which deals with the clearance of a village on the island of Raasay. It includes his English recitation and, at the end, a taste of his Gaelic. I find it an ambitious exploration of mixed-media possibilities for spoken poetry. Here it is.

John