The Skinny Unbound Supplement 2016

14–29 AUG 2016

Let us introduce you Each August, Unbound offers 16 nights of free literary shenanigans which push performance to the fore. Roland Gulliver suggests you say hello once more to the improper child of the Festival proper Interview: Alan Bett

H

mmm, how to describe Unbound? Do we have any poker players out there? Of course we do. Now that doesn't sound too literary a comparison does it? That twilight pastime where you might win or lose it all with the turn of a card. Well, au contraire. Poker has been pulled onto the pages of everyone from Updike to Faulkner to Fleming. And just think of that magical scene in Jim Dodge's Stone Junction. A very apt choice of book, because as a second analogy (we have more, lurking), Unbound is the cult novel to the main Book Festival's classic text. Bukowski to the Festival's Brontë. But, back to the green baize of the poker table. Edinburgh International Book Festival is quite simply a sure bet. It is literary royalty; a flush. The after-dark corner of Unbound however is pushing your chips all-in to bluff on a 2-7, and winning of course. It's impish, unpredictable and more than a little intoxicating.

For those unaware, Unbound is a 16 night run of free literary performances in the Spiegeltent, nestling in the corner of Charlotte Square Gardens, which the Book Festival calls home each August.

At this party of writers, it is the kitchen where the cool kids hang. The literary punch is agreeably spiked with poetry and performance, illustration, song and sometimes dance.

Roland Gulliver is the parent of Unbound – he devised the first programme in 2010 and still holds the reins. So he is the man who must attempt to explain that the apple has not fallen far from the Edinburgh International Book Festival tree and his unruly child is really just misunderstood. “When I programme Unbound I'm trying to find things that reflect the main programme,” Roland suggests over wine and a chat, “but present them in an unusual way. So more often it's around storytelling, it's around music. It's around putting together writers and artists in an interesting way.

“One of the themes of the main programme is the refugee crisis. Those stories being told are quite scary and sad in terms of how these people are being dehumanised: people are withdrawing and reducing human contact. But the Unbound events look at how we engage as human beings.”

An example: this year Unbound hosts a night confronting the refugee crisis through poetry – showcasing how powerful the form can be for expressing emotion in relation to the tragedy.

Unbound gleefully flips the common argument.

We often struggle to understand an issue until we wear the shoes and share the experience.

Scotland of course has a history of migration: ancestors fleeing the Highland clearances reached Canada and founded Winnipeg. So Winnipeg International Writers Festival are coming to discuss their city's cultural make-up from varying angles and interpretations. “They've brought four writers over from Canada to talk about their work and modern Canada,” says Roland. “With their connection to Scotland it's a really interesting twist on the migration issue.”

Unbound also pulls diverse voices to the fore: “What I always try and do with Unbound is to fit different languages into the Festival, so one of the Canadian writers will be reading in Cree and the Pakistani writers (with Highlight Arts Pakistan) will be telling stories in their original language.” To feel the rhythm of a language can be just as important as interpreting its words.

Unbound favourites The Bookshop Band will welcome Han Kang to the stage, to read in Korean, with the band performing songs inspired by the 2016 Booker International Prize winner's novel The Vegetarian. You see, Unbound might be absolutely free, but it's far from cheap. On a single night last year, Man Booker Prize winner Marlon James read alongside the newly crowned Bailey's Prize winner Lisa McInerney and the highly acclaimed novelist Ryan Gattis – just imagine those three voices on stage together: speaking for Galway, Kingston and LA. Gattis himself provided one of those magical Unbound moments, when he read the first chapter of his devastating LA riots novel All Involved. “That was the moment where you could just feel in the silence that everyone is there, everyone is listening, everyone is captured,” Roland explains. “On one side you have those beautiful and intense moments where everyone is caught in the story, then in contrast you have the moments where people

Roland Gulliver

just start having fun and start dancing.”

This may be a loose reference to talents a little more home grown. Last year, Scottish hip-hop band Hector Bizerk blew the roof off the Spiegeltent while performing for literary rabble rousers Neu! Reekie! Those enablers of rowdiness once again host a night in 2016 and it would be wise to squeeze into the packed Spiegeltent early.

They make magical moments part of their routine.

“ You have those beautiful and intense moments where everyone is caught in the story, then in contrast you have moments where people start having fun and dancing.”

Dina Mousawi

2

Feature

Credit: Helen Jones

Roland Gulliver

Unbound challenges the audience: those who might feel literature is not for them. It simultaneously challenges the traditionalists by showing that there is literary value beyond the words on the page. The word novel means to make new, so why not approach storytelling through as many forms as possible? Stories will be drawn out on stage at Unbound, literally, as one evening's hosts will illustrate. “Phoenix Comic is the best comic being written for kids.” Roland exclaims. “It's storytelling, it's history, it's funny, it's quality – there's no plastic tat toy on the

UNBOUND

front.” And of course the Babble On spoken word strand from the main festival programme lets its hair down (even further) for Unbound. “So, Tongue Fu are on Saturday night. Two years ago we had a boxing ring in there for Babble On's Page Match night, how are we going to match that?” asks Roland. “Tongue Fu are a jazz funk band who get people to come and read and perform and sing, it's going to be upbeat, it's going to be what you need on a Saturday night.”

And while acts from the main programme do bleed into Unbound, on the Festival's final night, Unbound itself spills out into Charlotte Square for readings and shenanigans. Vic Galloway is hosting an evening of writers and bands, which will pause politely for the fireworks, then reconvene for further debauchery.

What differentiates Unbound from the multitude of shows on offer in Edinburgh each August? It goes beyond simple entertainment.

“You need integrity at the bottom of it,” suggests Roland. “You need the belief in stories and storytelling and books… if you're trying to find the thing that drives me, it's for people to discover that books aren't scary, and that if you can just creep a little bit further you'll find something which is quite incredible and can change your life.”

And did we mention it's free? For 16 nights in Edinburgh in August you can experience top level writers and musicians from around the globe having fun, challenging your expectations and challenging themselves. “All writers want to be rock stars and all rock stars want to be writers,” is the phrase Roland coins. You can even have a beer (although you'll need to pay for that). Returning to Bukowski, he once suggested “When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.” We're not encouraging you to bevy particularly, but here you can get drunk on words as much as wine.

The signs at the entrance to Charlotte Square Gardens invite all in. “There are so few free cultural spaces now,” concludes Roland. “All the libraries are closing, yet here is a free literary space for you to come and discover.”

Unbound, 14-29 Aug, Spiegeltent, Charlotte Square Gardens, Free

THE SKINNY

Oh, Canada Canada's history is intrinsically linked with Scotland's, and as the whole world keeps on shrinking, all our futures are tied together. So let's cram into the Spiegeltent, perhaps pour a whisky/whiskey and let four amazing writers educate and entertain us

T

he great Robin Williams once said that “Canada is like a really nice apartment over a meth lab.”

A generally groovy people sitting atop a more powerful and often vocal neighbour. Relatable.

“Canada is a patchwork of the world's peoples, and like all countries, we have stories which have been embraced and refined, and others which have been undermined or silenced,” says Charlene Diehl, Director of the Winnipeg International Writers Festival. There's at least a little tartan in that patchwork as Winnipeg itself grew out of a Scottish settlement and even now a glance at the city's map reveals “a litany of Scottish towns and surnames: McPhillips, Nairn, Selkirk, Minto, McMillan, Sinclair, Kildonan, Woodhaven.” The link might be a couple of centuries old now but just last year the ‘Great White North's’ own Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye was named World Whisky of the Year, so it's clear we're all on the same page when it comes to the important things.

That kind of cultural connection is definitely worth celebrating and a contingent of Winnipeg's finest are Edinburgh-bound for Unbound, to help us do just that with a night of readings and all-round revelry on Monday 15 August, embracing the love of liquor and literature that still thrives in both nations. But beyond the specific link our two countries share – living on in Winnipeg in the form of what Charlene describes as “a certain combination of practicality, self-reliance, and self-deprecating wit” – is the fundamental experience which birthed it and which has recurred across the world and throughout history: a group of people uprooted and tossed across the globe, seeking something new while trying to keep the old intact.

When migration hits the headlines it's mostly relayed through a more pessimistic narrative. Floods of people seeking sanctuary from natural and unnatural disasters, risking

July 2016

everything and arriving with nothing into a system often incapable or unwilling to help them. The story is mostly one of failure, what we're not doing and who we're not helping. Or worse, who we're not even trying to help, as ex-reality TV stars with bad hair and worse ideas rave about building walls and banning everyone as right wingers the world over manage to maintain a straight face while attesting that all of their country's problems are being caused by a small minority who own nothing rather than the even smaller one that own everything.

Winnipeg's own history has been no less turbulent, from the original wave of settlers who claimed the land out from under its owners, to the modern day, where like most multicultural cities, it works to reconcile the multiple ethnicities in its make-up into a single community.

A night under the Spiegeltent's roof won't fix everything, but what it can do is provide a stage for writers to get up and shout the story of their heritage and history. Those stories, which have been trampled under the dominant narrative of national identity, can get some room to breathe and then to speak. Or shout or sing or do whatever they feel necessary to assert their rightful place in their country's story.

Cosmopolitan, modern cities like Edinburgh and Winnipeg have no singular history – there's no one story of who they are now or how they came to be. Instead there are hundreds of little tales, the lived experience of different groups who wound up there travelling different roads, arriving at different times under vastly different circumstances. The writers who'll be hitting Edinburgh in August represent a snapshot of the eclectic mixture that makes up modern Winnipeg.

For three of the appearing writers, Canada's history is also their own. Tracing their own heritage back through the generations, they tell a story of how modern Winnipeg came to be.

Writing both in English and Cree, Métis poet Gregory Scofield counters the often sanitised official history of Winnipeg, honouring those who fought and died for their equality in the past and painting a vivid picture of Métis life in the present. Writing as someone of Irish, Scottish and Jewish heritage as well as that of Métis, Scofield is the perfect writer to complicate the idea of Canadianness, tearing up the traditional picture and demanding something fuller in alluring verse.

Winner of the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, Candace Savage traces her own family tree back to the pioneer days, telling a personal story of a nation's past and how migration has shaped then reshaped it in ways good and bad, while Ukrainian-Canadian historian (and anyone who can still say that by the end of the night has failed at whisky) Myrna Kostash has also delved deep into the tale of how the Canadian West was settled.

“We're a long way from the romanticised cowboys and Indians narrative” Charlene Diehl

While these three reach back into the past to unearth the stories which have been long submerged, spoken word poet Chimwemwe Undi points to the ways in which it is still evolving, a new strand of culture to be woven

UNBOUND

Interview: Ross McIndoe Illustration: Jacky Sheridan

into its DNA. Raised in southern Africa and of Chewa heritage, Undi is able to speak for the experience of the modern migrant and, as a student of linguistics, her works explore the language and meaning of home at a time when it is becoming an ever less rigid concept for an ever expanding section of the world.

Looking to the past and future, this Canadian quartet are ideally placed to dig into the 2016 festival's migration theme and give us a glimpse of Winnipeg's present. “The underlying idea is to share what ‘The West’ looks like now – we're a long way from the romanticised ‘cowboys and Indians’ narrative, and equally far from the empty prairie waiting to be tamed by sturdy settlers,” Charlene explains. “Those stories are part of our heritage and they're not exactly untrue, but our current writing is challenging the underlying value systems and structures of power contained in those views.”

There's a lot of serious ground to be covered dealing with ideas like migration, race and the colonial legacy that still colours places like Canada. This Unbound night will be about celebrating the creative energy sparked out of the conflict, the vibrant diversity which now flows through Winnipeg's artistic scene.

“On our Canada Night, you'll hear a Métis poet of Scottish/Cree/Jewish background, a historian of Ukrainian heritage, an environmentalist offering a cultural history of the prairie, a young South African immigrant spoken word poet, and (hopefully) a mixed race poet from the west coast. All of them are knock-out writers, and together they provide a pretty good picture of what the Canadian West looks like – diverse, spirited, self-critical, big-hearted and very aware of the work that needs to be done.”

From Sutherland to Saskatoon, 15 Aug, 9pm, Free

Feature

3

Well-Versed From folk to punk and now hip-hop, music has long enjoyed a powerful kinship with poetry: together more than a sum of their parts. We speak to four Unbounders at the forefront of this cross-cultural collaboration to better understand the relationship

T

he Skinny: Can you explain the history and ethos behind your multi-discipline events?

Michael Pedersen (Neu! Reekie!): For us to be diverse, desirable and daunting enough, we needed to host a fertile breeding ground for cross-cultural collaborations. I've always been enamoured by the idea of poets supporting musicians and vice versa, and all the fecundities of the imagination where those meet in the middle.

Chris Redmond (Tongue Fu): I started Tongue Fu nine years ago with our bass player, Riaan Vosloo. The idea was simply to do a few gigs with no rehearsals. I'd book some poets, he'd book some musicians and we'd see what happened. It was pretty low key and experimental. We had no idea if it would work. Sometimes it didn't but when it did, it was clear that it was exciting for us as artists and also for the audience. It kind of pulled everyone in the room into the present moment, because it was all about risk.

Jenny Lindsay: Flint & Pitch continues the multi-artform approach that Rachel McCrum and I had with Rally & Broad, where you can see spoken word poetry, live authors and bands all on one bill. It makes for a good live experience: it's engaging, it keeps an audience on their toes and also offers more of a chance for great collaborations to emerge. There is a far bigger audience for live music than there is for spoken word, unless yer talking about folks as well-kent as Kate Tempest. But that's starting to change.

The music acts aren't there as some kind of filler: the acts I programme are excellent lyricists – awesome and flexible and adaptable enough to appreciate and embrace the different style of audience at a predominantly literary event.

Do performers need to adapt their verbal delivery for these collaborative events?

MP: Nah, we'll adapt around them. We booked them for their light and lustre after aw – not the other way around.

CR: [Poets] need to be prepared for their work to sound different. They need to be willing to relinquish a bit of control and see the whole thing as a fun experiment. Music gives a context and emotional support to words, and when that music is being improvised it requires the poets to be flexible, and able to listen and respond to what's happening around them.

Do only certain vocal styles or types of performer work against the backdrop of

music? What are your considerations when programming?

JL: It's the compere's role to ensure that each act is well set up, wherever they are in a line-up; the programmer's role is to programme an event that works as a coherent whole. The band's full set will be the last slot, usually, as yes, it is harder to follow a band than owt else, so it wouldn't be sensible to put the short story writer straight after them, for example!

CR: I think the thing that determines whether the collaboration is going to work, is how well they communicate – how open they are, with the band and with the audience. You can tell by watching how people perform, where their focus is. If they appear open and not too introspective and the writing is good then there's a good chance it will work.

MP: We tend to start by billing a poet. It all lights up and lifts off from there. It's where we're both coming from after all [Pedersen co-programmes and comperes Neu! Reekie! with Kevin Williamson]. We're conscious of the tempo of the night, the expectations and affectations in raising the volume and bringing it back down – crescendos, diminuendos and each puff of sound or sight in between. It sounds a little wanky to say each event is its own artistic symphony, but I'm not denying it's how we feel.

Have you witnessed a cross-pollination in skills, and also audiences at your events?

MP: We are our audience and they are us too. We cross paths all over town so I guess and hope so.

CR: That's part of what the aim is: most audience members come because they know it's a multi-act thing, but some do come to see one particular act and then leave having experienced acts and art forms they might well never have thought they would like! I do always try to mix well-known folk with newcomers for this reason, of course!

JL: Definitely. The skills we've developed as a group have been informed by each other's abilities, perspectives and ideas. We've grown a very healthy audience in London precisely because we mix up art forms. It's more than a poetry night so we get more than a poetry audience. I think there's more of an appetite to smash stuff together now. Purism is fine and has it's place but it's so much more exciting, to us at least, to co-create, remix and reinvent; to push a little at the boundaries.

Rapper's Delight Dave Hook (Solareye of Scottish hip-hop band Stanley Odd) now straddles the camps of both rap and spoken word, and here ponders on the porous borders between them

I

think as a rapper you generally go into any of these situations [spoken word events] thinking, ‘What am I doing here?’ I certainly feel out of my comfort zone alone on stage. Having said that, the spoken word events I've been at this year have been some of my favourite gigs. There's a real diversity of style and content and the audiences actually listen to folk – which in itself is a bit disturbing if you're used to playing gigs at clubs and festivals!

I really enjoy the a cappella spoken word nights because you can slow down your delivery and sometimes you have a bit more time to explain the songs before you rap them.

Audience feedback is more direct and you end up in a sort of conversation as much as a performance, which is cool too.

4

Feature

Interview: Alan Bett Illustration: Jacky Sheridan

UNBOUND

There is very often a different tone between spoken word and rap. Obviously rap is generally written for a beat and the rhythms that you would rap to are there even when you take the beat away. I don't know the art of spoken word well enough to comment really but there seem to be general boundaries for style and tone although I notice that not all spoken word artists conform to them. Hollie McNish is one of my favourite writers and performers. She's also a complete natural at talking to an audience and delivering her poems. Her performance is definitely poetry, definitely not rap, but it feels completely like natural speech patterns and I love that the stories leading up to her poems are regularly longer than the poems themselves.

Stanley Odd, Wed 24 Aug, 9pm, free

THE SKINNY

Feature

5

Found in Translation Highlight Arts focuses on Pakistan in this year's Unbound – the result of a period of collaboration between artists from Glasgow and Lahore, swapping stories across continents through translation and empathy. There will be words and music and celebration

W

hen you think of Syria, Iraq, or Pakistan, you probably don't think of their poets.

Conflict obscures all but the most brutal and wretched faces of a country: we see only the soldier, the refugee, the bombed-out building, the toothless skyline. But what about the people, cultures, and stories buried by the conflict?

Highlight Arts works to uncover these, through festivals, events and workshops.

The organisation's most recent project has connected artists and storytellers from Glasgow with their contemporaries in Lahore. A group of Scottish poets, illustrators, songwriters and novelists travelled out to Pakistan for the Lahore Literary Festival in February. They worked with fellow artists on collaborative pieces and translations of each other's work – and now they're coming to Unbound, to share the music, art and stories they found.

It's a remarkable way to create a deeper connection between two cultures, says poet Ryan Van Winkle, who coordinates the project for Highlight Arts. “Understanding another culture, another country, is not about learning statistics or chatting about the weather,” he says.

“Understanding comes from noticing a myriad of differences and similarities. We note the quality of light. We note the riverbanks, the way meals are cooked and shared.”

This is cultural immersion on a different scale – but it's not the first iteration of the project. It began in 2014, when the British Council invited Highlight Arts to organise translation workshops for two poets based in Glasgow and two in Lahore. “The idea was to explore the ‘twinning’ of these two important and vibrant cities in a human, personal and artistic way,” says Van Winkle. “It was an incredible experience for us and for the poets on both sides of the exchange.

We loved Lahore, we loved the poetry and we loved working with Sang-e-Meel Publications, the

6

Feature

largest Urdu-language publisher in Pakistan.”

The project was designed to go far beyond any kind of surface-level meet and greet. “We knew when we presented the work in Lahore for the first time that, through the intimate act of translation, authentic relationships between poets were forged and were palpable to our audience,” he explains. “We were very excited about this because, really, creating empathy, understanding and appreciation across cultures is a kind of alchemy and you never know how it will go.”

Based on the success of the first project, the British Council asked Highlight Arts to expand it.

So in 2015 Van Winkle took more poets out to Lahore, and held events as part of the Alchemy Festival in Glasgow and London. This year, the Edinburgh International Book Festival supported their work in Lahore, and they're presenting the widest collection of material so far at Unbound.

At the core of all of this is the act of translation. Nobody here is a professional translator, but the gap in fluency seems to give rise to a connection on a level beyond language.

There is always common ground, as Jim Carruth found during the project. “Family relationships are a difficult business,” explains the Scottish poet, “but something that most of us have in common. Maybe translation, by its nature and especially with living poets, is a bit like that too.”

It's about noticing things, says Ryan.

“When Highlight Arts brought two Scottish poets to Lahore and four Pakistani poets to Glasgow we were reminded that the act of translation is one of noticing – of interpreting difference and similarity. All the artists, poets, musicians and storytellers came together with empathy, expecting differences of style and content, and all bared themselves without shadow in an effort to inhabit the other's work.

These artists have all sat across from each

other, face to face, and were reminded of the bonds we, as humans, share.”

And what of the artists who will appear on stage at Unbound this year? For Ian Stephen, a storyteller, poet and seaman from Lewis, the week in Lahore was intense. “Swapping stories as we looked for shared themes and imagery was friendly,” he says, “but it was also stimulating.” He spent time sharing tales with Pakistani storyteller Mujahid Eshai, and again it was about finding the common strands among the glittering differences.

“Creating empathy, understanding and appreciation across cultures is a kind of alchemy and you never know how it will go.”

Ryan Van Winkle

“In times of political unrest and armed conflict,” he continues, “it reminds you of the shared human psychology which results in narratives and imagery with astonishing similarities. For example, the myth of lovers separated in life but united in death occurs in the Outer Hebrides as well as the Punjab. We also have witty trickster tales in common.”

For Stephen, working with Mujahid didn't feel like previous translation projects that he's worked on. “In this project it was not so much

UNBOUND

Interview: Galen O'Hanlon

about translations as finding parallel tracks, story for story, assisted by the stunning and detailed imagery produced by Kate (Leiper, a Scottish illustrator working on the project) and her own collaborator. I'd contrast that with poetry translation projects I've been involved with which are about close scrutiny of language and sound and craft.”

And while he won't reveal too much of what's in store for Unbound, he will be focusing on the shared ground of riddles, ballads and songs that are the foundations of Scottish and Pakistani storytelling. Together with Shazea Quraishi, a UK-based poet and storyteller from Lahore, they will riff on each other's stories.

There'll be music and poetry too. Sarah Hayes from the band Admiral Fallow worked with Sara Kazmi in Lahore, and the pair are looking forward to performing at Unbound. Once again, folk traditions are a rich source of creative material, but they also found similarities in the two cities’ industrial heritages. “Working in a cross-cultural collaboration like this was a new challenge for Sara and me,” says Hayes. “We were keen to find a meaningful musical connection and create something brand new from our respective folk traditions. We settled on our material pretty quickly, drawing parallels between the textile industry in Glasgow and Lahore, perennial themes of love and loss, and the use of bird and animal imagery to illustrate wider subjects.”

This is a rare opportunity to see a new blend of folk tales, says Van Winkle. “It's such a pleasure to see how Scottish and Pakistani folk songs and poetry meld together in their set – in which all sorts of Pakistani and Punjabi influences mingle with classic songs from artists such as Nancy Whiskey.” It's a fascinating project, and promises to be a lively night.

From Lewis to Lahore, Sun 21 Aug, 9pm, Free

THE SKINNY

Thon Woman, Liz, Lochhead You can put her on stage but can ye Makar sing? Yes and no. Our ex national Bard updates poet Clare Mulley on her Unbound night of folk, pop, poetry and jazz – the performance of her new collaborative album The Light Comes Back with The Hazey Janes

I

t's easy to see why Liz Lochhead has such a way with spoken word and the stage. She settles into conversation as naturally as a tabby curling up in an armchair, and renders listeners every bit as relaxed in the process. There's no hint of cagey or awkward, as you might expect from any sane person on the phone to a complete stranger – in fact, it hardly feels like an interview. Two minutes in, she asks me to excuse her for a couple of seconds, “…just needed to retie my dressing gown cord on the way to the kettle…” After that we're off again in full flow for the best part of an hour. She chats warmly and easily about her work, her numerous friends and the art of writing, flitting into many fascinating trains of thought along the way.

There's no doubt that Lochhead is one of the strongest women's voices in Scottish poetry, and has been a guiding light to many female artists who came after. However, when I ask about the earlier years she spent establishing herself – a time when female poets were still very much a rarity – she is typically modest of her achievements. “I don't know if I really paved the feminist way – being the token woman poet was a

definite advantage. I also had a lot of luck. If I'd started 15 years later, I'd still have been exactly me, but I would have had it harder. I was one of a generation of pioneers.” We briefly discuss the recent election of Jackie Kay, whom she likes a great deal, and the difficulties of picking from such an illustrious shortlist. “I wasn't consulted on the choice of new Makar, to my relief,” she laughs, “I'd have been delighted with any of them.”

As you'd assume, her feet have barely touched soil for the past few years, and, with her new play Thon Man Molière already winning rave reviews, it is only now that she can look forward to a more definite rest. She speaks with great fondness of a caravan park on the West Highland coast, where she first used to holiday with her late husband, Tom, and still often uses as a retreat. A painting of its sea view – her own – features on the cover of her latest book of poems, Fugitive Colours. Amongst other things, the collection tackles the theme of bereavement, and the caravan features early on as a setting both for some of her happiest memories and deepest griefs. After Tom passed away, one of the first hurdles was to reclaim the caravan emotionally as

a place she could relax. “I had to go back,” she says. “I said to myself, ‘If I don't go soon I'll never be able to go.’”

“I don't know if I really paved the feminist way...

I was one of a generation of pioneers” Like Fugitive Colours, her appearance at Unbound has a lot to do with the theme of commemoration, and audiences are in for something rather special. She will be showcasing the collaborative album, The Light Comes Back (recently recorded by Tob Records on the Isle of Mull) with indie band The Hazey Janes and

Interview: Clare Mulley saxophonist Steve Kettley, which is dedicated to the memory of one of her friends, singer-songwriter Michael Marra. Marra's son and daughter are in the band, and the project was triggered by a poem Liz wrote on the day of his funeral, The Optimistic Sound. The band left room for ‘unspecified Liz narrative’ in their planning (“I can't sing!”) which grew into performances of her poems flecked throughout the music, and the finished album also contains one of Marra's own tunes. It is, in a word, beautiful – a hybrid of Radio 4-style monologue with a mash-up of incidental folk, pop and jazz. Lochhead's clear voice forms snapshots, delicately underpinning every tiny fluctuation in emotion, the mellow sax swooning up and down underneath it all the while like dribbling honey.

So what happens after Unbound draws to a close? A very peaceful not much, it seems. “I'm on my own over summer having a break, and I'm going to try and have a slightly different year.

I haven't been in the situation of not knowing exactly what to write next for a while… and I need to clean the kitchen.”

Liz Lochhead and The Hazey Janes, Tue 16 Aug, 9pm, Free

A Taste of Unbound Instead of reading our words, let's listen to theirs. Here's a selection of sentences and stanzas which have come out of the mouths of our 2016 Unbounders.

What is it?

Let me explain It’s kind of like a martial art, fought between your brain and your mouth and your body and the spiritual connection.

You can call that God or intellectual reflection.

It’s a natural selection of provocative poems.

We’re funky word farmers and we’ve all been sowing the seeds for some time, scribbling away, trying to write the tight rhymes, all got something to say.

But we play a little game here, to entertain you.

We mix the music and the words when we do Tongue Fu. – Extract from Fu Man Choo Choo by Chris Redmond I came here all rude American brass, all trash can, fanny pack, Where’s the castle?

Then Glasgow rolled itself under my tongue, a grey marble lolling my mouth open with Os: Glasgow, Kelvingrove, going to Tescos, then thistling my speech wi sleekit lisps, wee packets a crisps – Extract from Outwith by Katie Ailes

July 2016

I keep meeting writers, artists and musicians who have given up writing, painting or music.

And we get wasted, we smoke and we drink and talk of wasted talent, and it always ends the same way, with me insisting that the colours and the notes and the words don’t die, sometimes they just get lost.

I tell them I couldn’t ever quit and walk out on writing.

It’s usually then they give me that look always that look – like one day I will give up they look at me like one day I’ll see how hard it is to make it work they look at me like I don’t get it like I don’t understand and I stop talking and I smoke and drink and think they never did.

– Don’t Feed the Poets by Salena Godden

I N D E P E N D E N T

C U LT U R A L

J O U R N A L I S M

Editors: Rosamund West & Alan Bett Subeditor: Will Fitzpatrick Designer: Kyle McPartlin Production Manager & Picture Editor: Sarah Donley Illustrator: Jacky Sheridan

Unbound, 14-29 Aug, Spiegeltent, Charlotte Square Gardens, Free

UNBOUND

Feature

7

What's On at Unbound 2016

All events start at 9pm (7pm on Monday 29 August) in the Spiegeltent, Charlotte Square Gardens. And they're free! Just drop in, no need for a ticket unshackle another stellar line up of music and poetry including Admiral Fallow, Salena Godden, Sarah Howe and more.

Sat 27 Aug

Roddy Woomble & Friends

Sun 14 Aug

The Phoenix Rises The Phoenix Comic has been cool for kids for many years, and now Unbound revellers will be treated to some late night antics from gladiatorial Gary Northfield (Julius Zebra), caped comic crusader Laura Ellen Anderson (Evil Emperor Penguin), adventurer extraordinaire Jamie Littler (Cogg & Sprokit), Cloud Rider Zak SimmondsHurn (Simon Swift) and deadly Corpse Talk creator Adam Murphy. Join them for a night of interactive drawing and performances.

Mon 15 Aug

From Sutherland To Saskatoon Winnipeg was founded by Scots exiled by the Highland Clearances; the Book Festival got together with Winnipeg International Writers Festival to uncover the make-up and mix of modern, multilingual Canada, from the founding nations to new migrant experiences. Host Charlene Diehl is joined by memoirist Myrna Kostash, cultural geographer Candace Savage, spoken word artist Chimwemwe Undi, Métis poet Gregory Scofield, and Edinburgh's own Theresa Munoz. As chilled as the frozen North.

Tue 16 Aug

Liz Lochhead & The Hazey Janes Liz called. She said, ‘I'm working with The Hazey Janes. Together we are creating a celebration of the lyric impulse and the love of strange and new harmonies – I quite fancy doing an Unbound session; what do you think?’ Fresh from their recent CD release The Light Comes Back, former Scots Makar Liz Lochhead and the much loved and lauded indie pop band The Hazey Janes, led by experimental jazz saxophonist Steve Kettley, give you a night of sensational sounds and sonnets.

Wed 17 Aug

Bookshop Band The Book Festival has commissioned new songs by the Bookshop Band to celebrate their day of events spotlighting international fiction and translation, happening throughout Wednesday 17 August. The core of inspiration for the new tracks is Han

8

Listings

Kang's Man Booker International Prize-winning novel The Vegetarian.

To add to the magic, Han Kang will join the Bookshop Band on stage too.

Thu 18 Aug

Poetry As Refuge Fires of fear are being fanned as we watch the refugee crisis unfold across Europe. Writers, artists and poets are restless and responding; countering with words of hope, heart and humanity. Join one of this year's Book Festival Guest Selectors, Bidisha, for a multilingual, multinational, musical poetry evening and discover the healing combination of language, poetry and music. Bidisha offers a welcoming light in dark times.

Fri 19 Aug

The EVP Sessions A collaboration between Penned in the Margins and Mercy, Electronic Voice Phenomena becomes unbound in an electrifying live session. Mercurial multimedia artist Appau Junior Boakye-Yiadom resonates dub echoes and performance poet Harry Giles considers remote technology, but that's not all… Antosh Wocjik investigates memory loss with percussion and award-winning raconteur Ross Sutherland plays [g]host with Trutherstyle video works.

Sat 20 Aug Tongue Fu

In Scotland for one night only at the Book Festival, Tongue Fu is a riotous experiment in live literature, music and improvisation. Created and hosted by poet Chris Redmond (Scroobius Pip's Beatdown XFM; Pick Of The Week – BBC R4), it is among the UK's liveliest and largest spoken word shows; regular performers include Jamie Cullum, Beardyman Dream Team and Nostalgia 77. Unbound Tongue Fu will feature Hollie McNish, Luke Wright, Ross Sutherland, Deanna Rodger and surprise guests.

Sun 21 Aug

From Lewis To Lahore In 2015 the Book Festival began a journey with Highlight Arts travelling from Scotland to Pakistan and back again, refuelling at the Lahore Literary Festival – an adventure involving

telling and translating stories, poetry, pictures and music. The collaboration will be encapsulated by creatives from Scotland and Pakistan in this special Unbound. From Scotland, storyteller Ian Stephen, poet Vicki Husband, illustrator Kate Leiper and Admiral Fallow's Sara Hayes. Representing Pakistan is storyteller Shazea Quraishi, illustrator Mehreen Fatima and musician Sara Kazmi. Thanks to the British Council, the event will travel to the Outer Hebrides later in August.

Wed 24 Aug

Mon 22 Aug

Imagine Better

Macastory & Friends At the heart of Unbound is literary joy and, inspired by their LandWords Festival appearances, sensational storytelling duo Macastory will be shining bright, introducing Scotland’s history in the silliest way possible. It might not ALL be true but some of it is!

Come along for characters, costumes, songs and hopefully The Sandpit Men.

Tue 23 Aug

Born To Be Wide Led by ‘Olaf the Enforcer’, Born to be Wide has been doing good in the world of music for many years. They fight the cause for quality music, writing, performance and storytelling, helping new artists to climb up the ladder of fame and celebrating those at the top. Join Olaf for interviews, stories and music with some of Scotland’s newest talents.

Stanley Odd

Fresh from headlining summer music festivals, Scotland's finest hip-hop band are back at the Book Festival and ready to make the Spiegeltent boards bounce with stripped back classics from their recent albums Reject and A Thing Brand New. They will also be testing out new tracks.

Exciting times!

Thu 25 Aug

Inspired by The Rising Generation, the latest issue of Poetry Ireland Review, the relationship and conflicts between personal and political identities and the boundaries between art and activism are explored. Alongside Ireland's new generation of poetry activists, readers include IMPAC winning writer Kevin Barry, Canadian Madeleine Thien, whose novels explore her Chinese heritage, and the creator of satirical fables on the former Soviet Union, Hamid Ismailov.

Fri 26 Aug

Neu! Reekie!

So far 2016 has seen founders and hosts of Neu! Reekie! Pederson and Williamson continue to trail a blaze across Scotland with their trademark panache presenting poetry, and music and their latest anthology #UntitledTwo. Join them as they

Indie folk band Idlewild returned in 2015 with new album Everything Ever Written. Tonight acclaimed singersongwriter and front man Roddy Woomble will take a break from US and UK music tours to celebrate his debut book; a playful mix of paintings, photographs and words that drive his work. He will be reading and performing alongside fellow musicians Andrew Mitchell, Luciano Rossi and Siobhan Wilson.

Sun 28 Aug

The Flint & Pitch Revue All-round literary powerhouse Jenny Lindsay launches her latest venture, Flint & Pitch, which continues the cabaret style of Rally & Broad but punches stronger and bolder. The first line-up is packed with readings from Hannah McGill, performances from Dave Hook, Katie Ailes and Sam Small, plus music from Roseanne Reid and Pronto Mama.

Mon 29 Aug

Vic Galloway & Friends The last night finale kicks off early at 7pm, bringing together stories, song, festivities and fireworks across the whole of Charlotte Square Gardens. In secret locations around the garden Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature celebrates ten years of Story Shop and the official 20 cities of literature with readings from Story Shoppers past and international names of the future.

To go out on a bang, DJ and journalist Vic Galloway has created something extra special in the Spiegeltent, combining Belgium's best Tom Lanoye and Anneliese Verbeke with music guests Adam Stafford and Khartoum Heroes, the elusive seldom-seen ramshackle heroes of rock. See you on the dance floor!

Unbound On Tour Unbound is going on the road with the Book Festival’s Booked! programme, for August sessions in Inverclyde, Galashiels and Aberdeen. A specially curated Unbound night will be part of the Booked! Festivals, bringing together international authors with local writers and musicians for a free, informal night of performance and readings.

See edbookfest.co.uk/about-us/booked for full line-ups.

23-24 Aug — MacArts, Galashiels 25-26 Aug — Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock 29-30 Aug — ACT, Aberdeen Booked! is Edinburgh International Book Festival on the road around Scotland, bringing books to life for people in their own communities. Supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.

UNBOUND

THE SKINNY