The Flechitorium
'The Flechitorium presents an enormous range of subject matters, forms, styles and language but all of them are lynch-pinned bythe author's deep and sometimes ambivalent relationship withhis native Fife ... But what is a "Flechitorium"? You'll have toread the poem therein to find out, dear reader, but be careful- this is a collect on with a real bite to it.
'On the bill in this particular Flechitorium are a fistul ofnarrative ballads, historical and humorous to get us of to aflier. Then the mood changes and becomes more reflectiveand sombre ... That old Scottish literary tradition of flytingis resumed and developed in the contretemps between theallegorical squirrel and the peacock in Dunfermline Glen ....And as a bonus, the gathering of braw poems is enhanced bya sulfurous tale to conclude - though one more RLS thanHammer House of Horror.
'The Flechitorium is a delicious Fife broth or even Langtounbouillabaisse ... with its many hints and references to otherliterary cuisines beyond Fife and Scotland. At times it is funny, at others serious, it is always humane in its span of concernsfrom bawdy to spiritual yet the poems are crafted to addressand engage intellectually as well as emotionally. Whethersupped with short or lang spuin it will satisfy all tastes.'
From the Preface by William Hershaw
About the Author: Tom Hubbard is a novelist, poet and former itinerant academic whose second novel, The Lucky Charm of Major Bessop, appeared from Grace Note Publications in 2014; readers are still working out the teasing clues in this 'grotesque mystery of Fife'. His other works of fiction are the novel Marie B. (Ravenscraig Press, 2008), based on the life of the late-nineteenth century painter Marie Bashkirtseff, and, more recently, Slavonic Dances (Grace Note, 2017), a set of three linked novellas based on the comic and tragic encounters of the Scottish characters with eastern and eastcentral Europe. His book-length collections of poetry are The Chagall Winnocks (2011) and Parapets and Labyrinths (2013), both Scottish and European in their scope and also published by Grace Note. Tom was the first Librarian of the Scottish Poetry Library and went on to become a visiting university professor in France, Hungary and the USA. He has also worked as a researcher at Maynooth University in his ancestral Ireland. From 2000 to 2005 he edited the online Bibliography of Scottish Literature in Translation (BOSLIT); for this he conducted research in many mainland European countries. Between 2013 and 2016 he edited volumes of essays on Baudelaire, Flaubert and Henry James for Grey House of New York, and a three-volume annotated selection of the writings of Andrew Lang for Taylor & Francis. He has recently prepared a pamphlet (for Tapsalteerie Press) of Scots versions of the work of the Hungarian poet Gyozo Ferencz, and has also worked on other translations of Hungarian poetry, as commissioned by Dr Zsuzsanna Varga of Glasgow University. In Dundee he recorded his Scots versions of European poetry for the CD The Scots Leid in Europe, released in June 2017 by Scotsoun (Scots Language Society / Scots Leid Associe). In November 2015 he was elected an Honorary Member of the Széchenyi Academy of Letters and Arts, Budapest, and in April 2017 he became an Honorary Fellow of the Association of Scottish Literary Studies, which is administered at Glasgow University.
