The Edwin Morgan Twenties: Box Set
Written by Edwin Morgan / Introduction by Jackie Kay , Liz Lochhead , Ali Smith , Michael Rosen
£20.00
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Poetry
Reviews
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
About the Book
The beginning of the new decade brings with it a celebration of one of Scotland’s most cherished poets, Scotland’s first modern Makar, Edwin Morgan. A son of Glasgow, the city’s first poet Laureate, Morgan wrote about the city he loved, the people in it and about Scotland more widely: the country that he was so passionate about.
To mark the centenary, Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Limited, is repatriating Edwin Morgan back to Scotland where he is to be published again, in association with Carcanet. Morgan was at once a prolific and eclectic writer, whose themes were as diverse as love and science fiction. And to celebrate the diversity of such a loved poet we are publishing five individual, thematically arranged, selected poems. Each book contains twenty poems, works on: love; Scotland; people and places; animals; and space. These volumes are introduced by popular names: Jackie Kay, Liz Lochhead, Ali Smith and Michael Rosen. This box set is sure to be popular with fans of his works and collectors.
The Authors
Edwin Morgan
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.
Jackie Kay
Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh. She is the third modern Makar, the Scottish poet laureate. A poet, novelist and writer of short stories, she has enjoyed great acclaim for her work for both adults and children. Her first novel Trumpet won the Authors’ Club First Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. She is also the author of three collections of stories with Picador, Why Don't You Stop Talking, Wish I Was Here, and Reality, Reality; two poetry collections, Fiere and Bantam; and her memoir, Red Dust Road. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University, and divides her time between Glasgow and Manchester, where she is currently Chancellor of the University of Salford
Liz Lochhead
Liz Lochhead was born in Motherwell in 1947. While studying at the Glasgow School of Art she began to write seriously, gradually losing her way with her initial dream of becoming a painter. Her first book of poetry, Memo for Spring, was published in 1972 and sold 5,000 copies. The Scottish-Canadian Writers Exchange Fellowship,1978–9, marked her transition to full-time writer. She has since published several plays and poetry collections including A Choosing and most recently Fugitive Colours. Liz Lochhead was Scots Makar from 2011–2016.
Ali Smith
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.
Michael Rosen
Michael Rosen is a writer and broadcaster who has produced many books for children and a few for adults, too. He lives with his family in Hackney, London.
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Paperback | Pub: 02 Apr 2020£5.00Introduced by Jackie Kay, this selection of poems include the famous ‘Strawberries’ and ‘One Cigarette’ and four from Morgan’s autobiographical sequence, Love and a Life – love in all its aspects.
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Paperback | Pub: 02 Apr 2020£5.00In this volume Michael Rosen introduces Edwin Morgan’s animal poems. Morgan’s empathy with animals is well represented, from the still very topical ‘The White Rhinoceros’ to the prehistoric ‘The Bearsden Shark’ and the famous ‘The Loch...
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Paperback | Pub: 02 Apr 2020£5.00Introduced 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...
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Paperback | Pub: 02 Apr 2020£5.00A mixture of Morgan’s science fiction poems and concrete poems. There’s the famous encounter between humans and aliens in ‘The First Men on Mercury’, early digital tongue-twisting in ‘The Computer’s First Christmas Card’ and the...
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Paperback | Pub: 02 Apr 2020£5.00Introduced by Liz Lochhead, in this selection we journey round Scotland in ‘Canedolia’, study its history in ‘Picts’, home in on Morgan’s own city of Glasgow in ‘Glasgow Sonnet v’, imagine the country’s future in ‘The Coin’.
