Edwin George MorganOBEFRSE (27 April 1920 – 19 August 2010)[1] was a Scottish poet and translator associated with the Scottish Renaissance. He is widely recognised as one of the foremost Scottish poets of the 20th century. In 1999, Morgan was made the first Glasgow Poet Laureate. In 2004, he was named as the first Makar or National Poet for Scotland.
Life and career
Morgan was born in Glasgow and grew up in Rutherglen. His parents were Presbyterian. He convinced his parents to finance his membership of several book clubs in Glasgow. The Faber Book of Modern Verse (1936) was a "revelation" to him, he later said.[2]
Morgan entered the University of Glasgow in 1937. He studied French and Russian, while self-educating in "a good bit of Italian and German" as well.[2] After interrupting his studies to serve in World War II as a non-combatantconscientious objector with the Royal Army Medical Corps, Morgan graduated in 1947 and became a lecturer at the university. He worked there until his retirement as a full professor in 1980.[3]
Morgan described 'CHANGE RULES!' as 'the supreme graffito', whose liberating double-take suggests both a lifelong commitment to formal experimentation and his radically democratic left-wing political perspectives. From traditional sonnet to blank verse, from epic seriousness to camp and ludic nonsense; and whether engaged in time-travelling space fantasies or exploring contemporary developments in physics and technology, the range of Morgan's voices is a defining attribute.[4]
Morgan first expressed his identity as a gay man in Nothing Not Giving Messages: Reflections on his Work and Life (1990).[5] He had written many famous love poems, among them "Strawberries" and "The Unspoken", in which the love object was not gendered; this was partly because of legal problems at the time but also out of a desire to universalise them, as he made clear in an interview with Marshall Walker.[6] At the opening of the Glasgow LGBT Centre in 1995, he read a poem he had written for the occasion, and presented it to the centre as a gift.[7]
In 2002, he became the patron of Our Story Scotland. At the opening of the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh on 9 October 2004, Liz Lochhead read a poem written for the occasion by Morgan, titled "Poem for the Opening of the Scottish Parliament". She was announced as Morgan's successor as Scots Makar in January 2011.[8]
Near the end of his life, Morgan reached a new audience after collaborating with the Scottish band Idlewild on their album The Remote Part. In the closing moments of the album's final track "In Remote Part/ Scottish Fiction", he recites a poem, "Scottish Fiction", written specifically for the song.[9]
In 2007, Morgan contributed two poems to the compilation Ballads of the Book, for which a range of Scottish writers created poems to be made into songs by Scottish musicians. Morgan's songs "The Good Years" and "The Weight of Years" were performed by Karine Polwart and Idlewild respectively.[10]
In later life Morgan was cared for at a residential home as his health worsened. He published a collection in April 2010, months before his death, titled Dreams and Other Nightmares[12] to mark his 90th birthday.[11] Up until his death, he was the last survivor of the canonical 'Big Seven' (the others being Hugh MacDiarmid, Robert Garioch, Norman MacCaig, Iain Crichton Smith, George Mackay Brown, and Sorley MacLean).
On 19 August 2010, Edwin Morgan died of pneumonia in Glasgow at the age of 90.[1][13] The Scottish Poetry Library made the announcement in the morning.[11] Tributes came from, among others, politicians Alex Salmond and Iain Gray, as well as Carol Ann Duffy, the UK Poet Laureate.[14][15] In his will he left almost £1 million to the Scottish National Party.[16] Morgan also left £45,000 to a number of friends, former colleagues and charity organisations and set aside another £1 million for the creation of the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award, an annual award scheme for young poets in Scotland.[17] In 2012, The Edwin Morgan Trust was established to administer the Award which the poet wished to create from the earnings of his writing career. In April 2020 The Edwin Morgan Trust celebrated his life and work with a year long centenary programme.[18]
Poetry
Poetry by Edwin Morgan inscribed on the pavement on Candleriggs, Glasgow.
Morgan worked in a wide range of forms and styles, from the sonnet to concrete poetry. His Collected Poems appeared in 1990. He has also translated from a wide range of languages, including Russian, Hungarian, French, Italian, Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Old English (Beowulf). Many of these are collected in Rites of Passage. Selected Translations (1976). His 1952 translation of Beowulf has become a standard translation in America.[12]
Morgan was also influenced by the American beat poets, with their simple, accessible ideas and language being prominent features in his work.
His poetry may be studied as a Scottish Text for National 5 English.[19] Currently, if Edwin Morgan is studied at National 5, pupils study: "Winter" – a depressed narrator describing Bingham's pond during winter; "In the Snackbar"; "Glasgow 5 March 1971"; "Good Friday" – a poem about a bus journey on the Christian holiday; "Trio" – a tale about the power of friendship; "Glasgow Sonnet (I)" – a petrarchan sonnet about poverty.
In 1968 Morgan wrote "Starlings in George Square". This poem could be read as a comment on society's reluctance to accept the integration of different races. Other people have also considered it to be about the Russian Revolution in which "Starling" could be a reference to "Stalin".
Other notable poems include:
"The Death of Marilyn Monroe" (1962) – an outpouring of emotion and a social criticism after the death of prominent actress, Marilyn Monroe
"King Billy" (1968) – flashback of the gang warfare in Glasgow led by Billy Fullerton in the 1930s.
"Glasgow 5 March 1971" – robbery by two youths by pushing an unsuspecting couple through a shop window on Sauchiehall Street
"In the Snackbar" – concise description of an encounter with a disabled pensioner in a Glasgow café.
"A Good Year for Death" (26 September 1977) – a description of five famous people from the world of popular culture who died in 1977
"Poem for the Opening of the Scottish Parliament" – which was read by Liz Lochhead at the opening ceremony because he was too ill to read it in person. (9 October 2004)
Published work
Books
Dies Irae, 1952 – first published in Poems of Thirty Years, Carcanet New Press, 1982
Beowulf: A Verse Translation into Modern English, Hand and Flower Press, 1952
The Vision of Cathkin Braes and Other Poems, William MacLellan, 1952
The Cape of Good Hope (limited edition), Pound Press, 1955
Poems from Eugenio Montale (translator), School of Art, University of Reading, 1959
Attila József: Sixty Poems (translator), Mariscat, 2001
Cathures, 2002
Love and a Life: 50 Poems by Edwin Morgan, Mariscat, 2003
The Battle of Bannockburn (translator), SPL in association with Akros and Mariscat, 2004
Tales from Baron Munchausen, Mariscat, 2005
The Play of Gilgamesh, 2005
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Rillie, Enitharmon, 2006
A Book of Lives, 2007
Articles
The Politics of Poetry, review of Yeats, Eliot, Pound and the Politics of Poetry by Cairns Craig, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 12, Spring 1983, p. 44, ISSN0264-0856
Novy Mir and the Stalinist Whirlwind, a review of Within the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginsburg and "Novy Mir": A Case Study in the Politics of Literature 1952 - 1958 by Edith Rogovin Frankel (ed.), in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 14, Autumn 1983, p. 54, ISSN0264-0856
Reviews
Hearn, Sheila G. (1980), review of Edwin Morgan (ed.), Scottish Satirical Verse, in Cencrastus No. 4, Winter 1980–81, p. 49, ISSN0264-0856
Hubbard, Tom, "Doing Something Uncustomary: Edwin Morgan and Attila Józef", in Hubbard, Tom (2022), Invitation to the Voyage: Scotland, Europe and Literature, Rymour, pp. 115 - 124, ISBN9-781739-596002
^Gardner, Raymond (26 April 1980). "Glasgow's Galactic Bard". The Glasgow Herald. p. 9. Archived from the original on 2 October 2020. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
^See Colin Nicholson, Edwin Morgan: Inventions of Modernity (Manchester 2002)
Wącior, Sławomir (2013), From Slate to Jupiter - Poetic Patterns of Edwin Morgan's "Sonnets from Scotland" in Scottish Studies Review, 1, 47–57, ISSN1745-3186
