In March 2008 no man's land returned to Scotland, bringing together Helmut Haberkamm and Fitzgerald Kusz, two German poets who work in Franconian dialect, with two poets, Alexander Hutchison and Robert Alan Jamieson, who work in Scots and Shetlandic.

The project kicked off on March 12 with a reading at the Glasgow School of Arts honoring the Glasgow-Nuremberg city partnership; Helmut Haberkamm and Fitzgerald Kusz were joined by Donal McLaughlin (with English translations) and Donny O'Rourke for the city of Glasgow.

At the University of Edinburgh from March 13-14 the poets paired up (Helmut Haberkamm/Robert Alan Jamieson and Fitzgerald Kusz/Alexander Hutchison) to translate one another's poems. They worked on the basis of gloss translations and with interpreters provided by the University of Edinburgh and the Heriot-Watt University Centre for Translation. The workshop enabled the poets to connect on a personal level, exploring shared experiences of living and working with dialect, examining their individual use of dialect as a mode of expression and seeking equivalents in the other language.

On March 15 Helmut Haberkamm and Fitzgerald Kusz gave a reading at the StAnza Poetry Festival in St. Andrews, with Donal McLaughlin reading his "standard English" translations and Alexander Hutchison and Robert Alan Jamieson contributing sample translations from the workshop.

Finally, on March 16 all four poets took to the podium for a "StAnza Translation Masterclass" moderated by translator Ken Cockburn. The discussion centered on alternative translations of brief excerpts from each poet's work, including several submitted by members of the audience. Broader issues relating to dialect and its use in literature in Germany and Scotland were touched on as well and led to a lively exchange of ideas.

A feature on the workshop including all translations and a discussion of the issues involved in translating dialect will be included in the next issue of no man's land in the winter of 2008.

Articles on the workshop (in German) can be found at: …

For an audience impression of the StAnza Masterclass, see .

We would like to thank the Goethe Institute Glasgow, the StAnza Poetry Festival and the University of Edinburgh for making this project possible, with special thanks to the following people:

Heike Uhlig (Goethe Institute)
Eleanor Livingstone (StAnza Poetry Festival)
Anna Crowe (StAnza Poetry Festival)
Marion Winters (University of Edinburgh)
Verena Jung (University of Edinburgh)
Donal McLaughlin
Ken Cockburn
Renate Fitzroy and Sarah Tolley for the interpreting and gloss translations.
Kay McBurney and Lutz Molderings for the gloss translations.

And of course to all the poets!

Isabel Cole