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Edwin Morgan
Edwin MorganModern ‘Makar’
Edwin Morgan’s Background
• Edwin George Morgan was born 27 April 1920 in Glasgow's West End.
• Soon after his birth his parents decided to move to Rutherglen, where he spent his childhood and attended a local school.
Edwin Morgan’s Background
• After completing Rutherglen School, Edwin Morgan went to Glasgow High School, and began his studies at Glasgow University in 1937.
• He interrupted his studies in 1940 to join the Royal Army Medical Corps. He then returned to university in 1946.
• Morgan graduated from Glasgow University with a first-class honours degree and taught there for many years.
• He took early retirement in 1980 to concentrate on his writing.
Congratulations!!!
Edwin Morgan is ‘National Poet of Scotland’
For the first time Scotland nominated its own Poet Laureate.
On Monday, 16 February 2004 Executive Minister of the Scottish Parliament, Jack McConnell, formally bestowed the title ‘Scots Makar’ on Edwin Morgan.
Mr McConnell said that he was 'the obvious choice' for this
post.
Edwin MorganModern ‘Makar’
Edwin Morgan’s Background
• Edwin George Morgan was born 27 April 1920 in Glasgow's West End.
• Soon after his birth his parents decided to move to Rutherglen, where he spent his childhood and attended a local school.
Edwin Morgan’s Background
• After completing Rutherglen School, Edwin Morgan went to Glasgow High School, and began his studies at Glasgow University in 1937.
• He interrupted his studies in 1940 to join the Royal Army Medical Corps. He then returned to university in 1946.
• Morgan graduated from Glasgow University with a first-class honours degree and taught there for many years.
• He took early retirement in 1980 to concentrate on his writing.
Congratulations!!!
Edwin Morgan is ‘National Poet of Scotland’
For the first time Scotland nominated its own Poet Laureate.
On Monday, 16 February 2004 Executive Minister of the Scottish Parliament, Jack McConnell, formally bestowed the title ‘Scots Makar’ on Edwin Morgan.
Mr McConnell said that he was 'the obvious choice' for this
post.
Congratulations!
Edwin Morgan is ‘National Poet of Scotland’
• This three-year appointment does not mean that the Makar has to write poems exclusively about Scotland, as the title does not carry any formal requirements. However, it does include the representation and promotion of Scottish poetry.
• ‘Makar‘ is an old Scottish word for ‘poet’ and is linked to the medieval Scots poets of the 15th and 16th centuries.
Frae yin Makar tae thi ither!
• Unfortunately, due to illness Morgan has had to give up the post of Makar.
• His good friend Liz Lochhead was appointed in his place.
Poetry … for everyone, everywhere
• It’s not just in schools and libraries that you’ll find poetry.
• Many poets read their poems in pubs. Here’s Morgan reading some of his in between a game of darts!
Lightheartedness
‘The Anaconda’
A huge anaconda named MaryWas told she was wicked and scary.
She swallowed a villageWithout any spillage
And said to them, ’My, that was rare, eh?’
Tools of the Trade
• Who needs technology?
• Ever wondered what a modern poet uses?
• Well, this is what Edwin Morgan uses.
• Just shows you, you don’t need the latest technology to be a poet!
‘The Apple’s Song’
Tap me with your finger, rub me with your sleeve,hold me, sniff me, peel me curling round and roundtill I burst out white and coldfrom my tight red coatand tingle in your palm … waiting for the minute of joy when you lift me to your mouth and crush me and in taste and fragrance I race through your head in my dizzy dissolve.
‘On the Bus’A fine day brings him out to us,He strides along the throbbing bus, Stripped to the waist to light a fuse Of glances at the rich tattoos Crawling and swirling round his torso Saying Read me! and even more so The challenge on his lower back That spells out just above the crack CELTIC, as gallus as you go. Two women clock the moving show As he walks past, turn each to each, And no my dears, you don't need speech, Exchanging only such a look As really should be in a book.
from ‘Glasgow Sonnets’
A mean wind wanders through the backcourt trash.
Hackles on puddles rise, old mattresses puff briefly and subside.
Play-fortresses of brick and bric-a-brac spill out some ash.
from ‘Glasgow Sonnets’
The kettle whimpers on a crazy hob.Roses of mould grow from ceiling to wall.
The man lies late since he has lost his job,smokes on one elbow, letting his coughs fall thinly into an air too poor to rob.
from ‘Glasgow Sonnets’
From thirtieth floor windows at Red Road …
stalled lift generating high-rise blues
can be set loose. But stalled lives never budge.
‘Open the Doors!’Morgan wrote a poem to celebrate the opening of the Scottish Parliament building in 2004. It was called‘Open the doors! Light of the day, shine in; light of the mind, shine out!’
‘Open the Doors!’
Open the doors! Light of the day shine in; light of the mind shine out!
We have a building which is more than a building. There is a commerce between inner and outer,
between brightness and shadow, between the world and those who think about the world.
Is it not a mystery? The parts cohere, they come together Like petals of a flower,
yet they also send their tongues outward to feel and taste the teeming earth.
Did you want classic columns and predictable pediments? A growl of old Gothic grandeur? A blissfully boring box?
Not here, no thanks! No icon, no IKEA, no iceberg, but curves and caverns, nooks and niches,
huddles and heavens, syncopations and surprises. Leave symmetry to the cemetery.
But bring together slate and stainless steel, black granite and grey granite, seasoned oak and sycamore,
concrete blond and smooth as silk – the mix is almost alive – it breathes and beckons –
imperial marble it is not!
‘Open the Doors!’
COME DOWN THE MILE, into the heart of the city, past the kirk of St Giles and the closes and wynds
of the noted ghosts of history who drank their claret and fell down the steep tenements stairs
into the arms of link-boys but who wrote and talked the starry Enlightenment
of their days – And before them the auld makars
who tickled a Scottish king’s ear with melody and ribaldry and frank advice –
And when you are there, down there, in the midst of things, not set upon an hill with your nose in the air,This is where you know your parliament should be
And this is where it is, just here.
‘Open the Doors!’
WHAT DO THE PEOPLE WANT of the place? They want it to be filled with thinking persons as open and adventurous as its architecture.A nest of fearties is what they do not want.
A symposium of procrastinators is what they do not want.
A phalanx of forelock-tuggers is what they do not want. And perhaps above all the droopy mantra of ‘it wizny me’
is what they do not want.Dear friends, dear lawgivers, dear parliamentarians, you are picking up a thread of pride and self-esteem that has been almost but not quite, oh no not quite,
not ever broken or forgotten.
‘Open the Doors!’
When you convene you will be reconvening, with a sense of not wholly the power,
not yet wholly the power, but a good sense of what was once in the honour of your
grasp.All right. Forget, or don’t forget, the past.
Trumpets and robes are fine, but in the present and the future you will need something
more. What is it? We, the people, cannot tell you yet, but you will know about it when we do tell you.
‘Open the Doors!’
We give you our consent to govern, don’t pocket it and ride away.
We give you our deepest dearest wish to govern well, don’t say we have no mandate to be so bold.
We give you this great building, don’t let your work and hope be other than great
when you enter and begin.SO NOW BEGIN, OPEN THE DOORS AND BEGIN.
‘Open the Doors!’
