Robert Alan Jamieson

22 Feb 2008 in Shetland, Writing

Shetland Calling

IAN STEPHEN considers an audio visual performance from Shetland by poet Robert Alan Jamieson as perceived from another island

MANY MOONS ago a tightly rolled sheave of broadsheets was delivered to my address in Stornoway. A present to Lewis from Shetland. Briggistanes was a bold move to establish an inter-island dialogue. The lead came from the north and it looked great, with high contrast black and white photography, strong poems and all done on quality paper.

I think the main instigator was Robert Alan Jamieson. I became attuned to his Shetland voice. Once I’d met him I could hear the poems coming out from the page. I encountered the full range of it in a handsome collection from Polygon called Shoormal. There was an epic night in the Blackfriars incarnation of the Demarco Gallery where Polygon poets, new and old, met and felt they were all kicking in the same team. A strong range of the accents of all the geographies which make up something sometimes called Scotland.

That word shoormal came up again in an audio visual presentation at the school of Scottish Studies, Edinburgh, a few weeks back. Jamieson was showing an audio visual work. His wide-ranging poems, in that strong rhythmic voice, were cut with the play of light on water, caught in a series of black and white photographs of life and landscape in his home area. It seemed to me that the wide ranging themes came back again and again to tidal territory – the disputed lands between the sea and the ground.

I’d seen a form of the presentation before, as an installation aboard the Scottish Fisheries Museum black flagship, Reaper. Jamieson’s images and sound filled the fo’cslle. The intimacy of the surroundings suited the material well. Jamieson’s voice is not really understated. There’s a lot happening in the language, craft without show. And so there’s no need for obvious dramatic effects. The drama is all there already if you listen for it. So there’s a tension and vitality but flourishes don’t happen.

The audio-visual presentation is digital. The soundtrack of simple audio effects and voice is very well phased with the images, leaving just the right time for resonance – the images move at the right pace. I could see, in the Edinburgh performance, that this has undergone some tuning since the Reaper installation.

The poet’s own photos are skillfully selected. They are rarely stunning – sometimes there are tightly composed shapes, sometimes there is a wide shot. Often you have to enter the poet’s own observation, slow down till you see it with him, there it is again – a quality of light on water which is the mood of the poem. The selection has been tuned to work perfectly with the voice.

So it’s a development of the old style slideshow and none the worse for it. I was reminded of the presentations Roddy Murray, the director of an Lanntair, used to make, linking the stories of 3 iconic ships – the Iolaire, the Metagama and the Politician.

It’s an exposition but the performance has been developed and recorded. You would think that this can no longer work when all the widescreen high definitiion singing and dancing options are available. But it does. Jamieson avoids the temptation to play safe and short, holds to an edit that must be near the maximum listening length. And makes it work.

Maybe the secret of this type of show is trust. The audience responds to being taken along for the full ride. The work is compelling and organizers of book-festivals would do well to grab this guy. The new edition of the poems and photographs from Luath Press was stacked high and shifting fast.

The book is a handsome but not fussy small-format hardback. The layout is clear and the whole thing is a fair reflection of a performance which has had these necessary years of development. There is enough background to give you an approach, enough technical notes on language to get your bearings. There are no compromises in the Shetlandic Scots but the synopsis on the facing page lifts the mist. It’s an excellent piece of publishing in that everything is clear but the poems are the main focus and they speak for themselves. Once you tune to the voice – and that’s best done by hearing it, live or from a disc, you don’t need a thing.

A particular sector of ocean is observed. The viewpoint is from the shore. So there is the romance of the ship in a bottle but also the irony of the drowning of a man en route to quench his thirst for ale. I don’t think the paper and photographic reproduction do full justice to the work as seen in performance. But it doesn’t matter. The clarity of the documentation and the range of images guide you through the sonorous poems.

The excellent book is one product of a whole project. I hope the performances are ongoing. The voice is that of a master at work.