The Chagall Winnocks

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').