Crossing Borders Commission – William Letford

Grandfather’s English had always been good but the pronunciation was thick, as if he ladled each word from the back of his throat. His laughter was cavernous, like the inside of his lungs were as bald as bongo drums. I imagined the sound being belted out around tea fires, snow on the branches of trees, black bears creeping backwards into the shadows. Gestures are a geography of their own and his swept like a landscape of valleys and mountains. I’ve seen men swell their chests, throw back their shoulders and raise their heads when ready to fight. This was his posture when he told a story. Daring someone to questions the facts – even if the truth was spun thin as a fairie’s wing. On the last day we talked he sat at the kitchen table. A hardwood table, scored with fork marks and knife ruts. His breath had become an orchestra of whistles, high and low and long and short. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is not a table, it is a map. Your mother,’ he placed his finger beside three prongs gouged out of the wood, ‘is here. Your grandmother,’ his finger moved toward a curved scar, ‘is here.’ And he continued, uncles and aunts and great-relatives, me, himself. He spread his arms to encompass the table. ‘Yours, he said, ‘so you know the way home.’

ten years later I realise}
the table is more than a
map/it is a continent |||
that can be carried — by
two people // riverbeds
angled like=breadknives
canyons carved from{{{{
cutlery( )clearings made
from candles burned low
generations —contained
within no more space:::::
than it takes ||| to have a
conversation : languages
flowering at :::: breakfast
ideas:::twisting like roots

Photo credit: DorkyMum

William Letford’s debut collection Bevel was published by Carcanet in 2012.

He has received a New Writer’s Award from the Scottish Book Trust, an Edwin Morgan Travel Bursary, and a Creative Scotland Artists’ Bursary, which allowed him to travel through India for six months. He has taken part in translation projects through Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine, and in 2014 a chapbook of his poetry, Potom Koža Toho Druhého, was translated into Slovakian and published by Vertigo.

His work has appeared on radio and television and his second full collection Dirt was published by Carcanet in 2016.

Commissioned as part of the International Literature Showcase 2015–2021; a partnership between National Centre for Writing, British Council and Arts Council England, supported by Creative Scotland, Arts Council Northern Ireland and Wales Arts International.