Edwin George MorganOBEFRSE (27 April 1920 – 19 August 2010)[1] was aScottish poet and translator associated with theScottish Renaissance. He is widely recognised as one of the foremost Scottish poets of the 20th century. In 1999, Morgan was made the first GlasgowPoet Laureate. In 2004, he was named as the firstMakar or National Poet for Scotland.
Morgan was born inGlasgow and grew up inRutherglen. His parents werePresbyterian. He convinced his parents to finance his membership of several book clubs in Glasgow. TheFaber Book of Modern Verse (1936) was a "revelation" to him, he later said.[2]
Morgan entered theUniversity 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 inWorld War II as anon-combatantconscientious objector with theRoyal 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 inNothing 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 theGlasgow 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 ofOur Story Scotland. At the opening of theScottish Parliament building inEdinburgh 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 bandIdlewild on their albumThe 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 compilationBallads 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 byKarine 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, titledDreams 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 beingHugh MacDiarmid,Robert Garioch,Norman MacCaig,Iain Crichton Smith,George Mackay Brown, andSorley MacLean).
On 19 August 2010, Edwin Morgan died ofpneumonia 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, politiciansAlex Salmond andIain Gray, as well asCarol Ann Duffy, theUK 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 theEdwin Morgan Poetry Award, an annual award scheme for young poets inScotland.[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 by Edwin Morgan inscribed on the pavement on Candleriggs, Glasgow.
Morgan worked in a wide range of forms and styles, from thesonnet toconcrete poetry. HisCollected Poems appeared in 1990. He has also translated from a wide range of languages, including Russian, Hungarian, French, Italian,Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, German andOld English (Beowulf). Many of these are collected inRites of Passage. Selected Translations (1976). His 1952 translation ofBeowulf has become a standard translation in America.[12]
Morgan was also influenced by the Americanbeat poets, with their simple, accessible ideas and language being prominent features in his work.
His poetry may be studied as a Scottish Text forNational 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 onthe Christian holiday; "Trio" – a tale about the power of friendship; "Glasgow Sonnet (I)" – apetrarchan 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 onSauchiehall 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 byLiz Lochhead at the opening ceremony because he was too ill to read it in person. (9 October 2004)
The Politics of Poetry, review ofYeats, Eliot, Pound and the Politics of Poetry byCairns Craig, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.),Cencrastus No. 12, Spring 1983, p. 44,ISSN0264-0856
Novy Mir and theStalinist Whirlwind, a review ofWithin 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
Hubbard, Tom, "Doing Something Uncustomary: Edwin Morgan andAttila Józef", in Hubbard, Tom (2022),Invitation to the Voyage: Scotland, Europe and Literature, Rymour, pp. 115 - 124,ISBN9-781739-596002
Osmond-Williams, Philippa.Changing Scotland: A social history of love in the life and work of Edwin Morgan. PhD diss., University of Glasgow, 2019.
^Gardner, Raymond (26 April 1980)."Glasgow's Galactic Bard".The Glasgow Herald. p. 9.Archived from the original on 2 October 2020. Retrieved23 July 2017.
^See Colin Nicholson, Edwin Morgan: Inventions of Modernity (Manchester 2002)
