The Edwin Morgan Twenties: Take Heart

Description

Introduced by Ali Smith, the title of this group of poems about people is taken from Morgan's poem Pelagius, the theologian who is a kind of alter ego. Morgan has the ability to enter into so many lives: the blind hunchback of In the Snack-bar, Jesus's judge in Pilate at Fortingall, the Polish juggler and acrobat Cinquevalli (another alter ego), even Rameses II in The Mummy. 'Morgan, I said to myself, take note, / Take heart. In a time of confusion / You must make a stand.'

Edwin Morgan (1920-2010) became Scotland's first National Poet, or Makar, in 2004. His poetic output was hardly dimmed by increasing age; Collected Poems (Carcanet, 1990) and Collected Translations (Carcanet, 1996) were succeeded by several later volumes of poetry, including Dreams and Other Nightmares (Mariscat Press, 2010). He was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2000. Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962. She studied at the University of Aberdeen and Newham College, Cambridge. Her first book, Free Love and Other Stories (1995) won the Saltire First Book of the Year award and a Scottish Arts Council Book Award. Her novel Autumn was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker. She lives in Cambridge.

No 20th-century poetry has brought me more varied, intense and unfading pleasure than Morgan's. His is the song of our time - the living, not the dying, song which "gives us our being" * Guardian *