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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

‘But you must agree with it, and love it, even when it grows too fierce for favour.’ Words of advice from the great poem-maker Edwin Morgan – happy #NationalPoetryDay! — ‘Making a Poem’, published in Collected Poems (Carcanet, 1990)

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Many thanks to Stuart Kelly for this wonderful review of A Home in Space – “a necessary joy” – in The Scotsman yesterday, alongside a fabulous selection of Scottish poetry by Colin Bramwell, Kristján Norge and the late, great John Burnside. @essencepress.bsky.social @gregchthomas.bsky.social

A Home in Space, a collection of Morgan’s more esoteric works – “selected concrete, visual and sound poetry” – is a necessary joy. Although some have been printed before, to see them in the original typewriter form is a wonderful harking back to when innovation did not mean clicking home / font / 14 point. There is an edginess that is in his more well known work; a sense of the glimpse and the overlooked being significant. [...] The editors, Julie Johnstone and Greg Thomas, should be commended for a book that is as beautiful as it is necessary, and which underlines how the avant-garde – Morgan, Hamilton Finlay, Riddell, Forrest-Thomas, WS Graham – was fundamental to Scottish poetics.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Congratulations Tom Bailey and Zainab Imran, winners of the 2026 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award! 💚🎉

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

A number of events are taking place over the coming weeks to celebrate the publication of A HOME IN SPACE, which brings together, for the first time, the full range of Edwin Morgan’s visual and sound poetry. Info and tickets at the link below! edwinmorgantrust.com/2026/08/10/a...

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

So what do you want? The morning, perhaps, and then I want the day, another day. — ‘21 June’ by Edwin Morgan, published in Cathures (Carcanet, 2002) #summersolstice☀️

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

A major new exhibition, ‘Rain’, opens today at the NLS ft. Edwin Morgan’s love-drenched poem ‘Kiss me...’ ☔ The exhibition showcases the breadth of the NLS collections, spanning poetry, literature, music & more for people to explore their own relationship to rain. www.nls.uk/whats-on/rain/

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

There were never strawberries like the ones we had that sultry afternoon ... Thanks to Lesley Duncan for featuring Edwin Morgan’s juicy summer classic in The Herald’s Weekend Magazine on Saturday 🍓❤️

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

...How often will I think you, until our dying steps forget this light, forget that we ever knew the happy glen, or that I ever said, We must jump into the sun, and we jumped into the sun. ☀️💚 ‘From a City Balcony’ by #EdwinMorgan, written in May 1964 & published in The Second Life (EUP, 1968)

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

“morgan more can – can more?” — ‘edwin @ 90’ by the late, great Aonghas MacNeacail for Edwin Morgan’s ninetieth birthday 💚 6/6

Edwin @ 90

Morgan
more can –
can more?
canmore
ceann mór
“great head”
aye brims
with poem –
king bard

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

“I’m wrong for him, loose boy. We are on a corner, of course we are, then in an alley smooching.” — ‘Kissing Edwin Morgan’ by Roddy Lumsden, first published in Poetry London, issue 86 (2017) poetrylondon.co.uk/kissing-edwi... 5/6

Kissing Edwin Morgan

seems uncanny because he is gay
and I am straight and because the day
is especially cold. A hungry kisser,
kissing him brings out the hive
that is him. A hive, are you with me?
Grey buildings. Check. Difficulties?
Check. I’m wrong for him, loose boy.
We are on a corner, of course we are,
then in an alley smooching. He talks
of the desert, distant rivers, Greekery,
the absolutes I will always fail to claim.
I smooth him. Rats run the terrace
we are dallying on. He nods, says yes.
To whatever. I hug him. Of course I do.
Love limits us, over, over, specialising
in this twisted limb of science. A bus
passes and we both wave to the world,
its merry passengers, its dour chance.
I have a train or plane to catch, I pat
his perfect shoulder, say farewell.
And then it is the night, alone. Night,
the second best escape; walk, walk in
a heavy coat. Maybe the future needs you.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

“The sun is shining. Eddie must be writing.” ☀️ — an extract from ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at Edwin Morgan’ by Gerry Cambridge, published in Madame Fi Fi’s Farewell and Other Poems (Luath Press, 2002) 4/6

XII

The sun is shining.
Eddie must be writing.

XIII

It was night-time all day long.
It was dreich
And it was going to dreichen.
Eddie made light
With his pencil point.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

“These days the air is rarer. Buildings glow. No city grime, just cigarettes, not smoking without you.” – ‘For Edwin Morgan, Maker’ by Janice Galloway, published in Unknown is Best: A Celebration of Edwin Morgan at Eighty (SPL & Mariscat, 2000) 3/6

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

“To swim out into the impassioned light and glint of the new ...” — ‘For Edwin Morgan’ by Iain Crichton Smith, published in Deer on the High Hills: Selected Poems (Carcanet Press, 2021) 2/6

For Edwin Morgan

To swim out
into the impassioned light
and glint of the new,

as it seeks language
vulnerable, strange-spined,
blink-eyed

is for you mandatory.
Let the blue sky
bend over oddity

or even the monstrous –
The taste of poetry
is for you, this,

to substitute for the rose
in abandoned windows
the happy orphans.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

✨ Happy birthday Eddie! ✨ On what would’ve been #EdwinMorgan ’s 106th birthday, we’re sharing some of the wonderful poems written in tribute to Eddie over the years ... 1/6

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Morgan’s poems and the corresponding artworks were later published by Luath Press in Beyond the Sun: Scotland’s Favourite Paintings, which was launched at the newly refurbished Kelvingrove Art Gallery on 27 April 2007, Morgan’s 87th birthday.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Happy #WorldArtDay! 🎨 In 2005, #EdwinMorgan wrote 10 poems responding to the 10 artworks named as Scotland’s favourite paintings held in Scottish public collections. EM’s personal favourite among the works was ‘Flood Tide’ (1962) by #JoanEardley, painted the year before she died.

Flood Tide

Joan Eardley

Lonely people are drawn to the sea.
Not for this artist the surge and glitter of salons,
Clutch of a sherry or making polite conversation.
See her when she is free: -
Striding into the salty bluster of a cliff-top
In her paint-splashed corduroys,
Humming as she recalls the wild shy boys
She sketched in the city, allowing nature's nations
Of grasses and wild shy flowers to stick
To the canvas they were blown against
By the mighty Catterline wind -
All becomes art, and as if it was incensed
By the painter's brush the sea growls up
In a white flood
The artist's cup is overflowing with what she dares
To think is joy, caught unawares
As if on the wing. A solitary clover,
Unable to read WET PAINT, rolls over
Once, twice, and then it's fixed,
Part of a field more human than the one
That took the gale and is now
As she is, beyond the sun.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

‘It will take a good strong rat to snap, but there are good strong rats.’ — ‘Trap’ by #EdwinMorgan, first published in Grafts (1983) and published here in Dreams and Other Nightmares (Mariscat Press, 2010) 🐀

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

For the #YearOfTheHorse🐎 – Edwin Morgan’s ‘Centaur’, first published in The Horseman’s Word (1970)

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

The 2026 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award is officially open for submissions 🎉🎉 If you’re a poet under 30 born, raised or currently living in Scotland and you have not yet published a full-length collection, we want to read your work! Deadline: Monday 30 March edwinmorgantrust.com/2021/11/15/a...

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

This Friday the 2026 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award opens for submissions! We’re thrilled to announce the fabulous panel judging this year’s award: ✨ Christine De Luca ✨ Roshni Gallagher ✨ Ryan Van Winkle ✨ Beth Frieden ✨ Janette Ayachi ✨ Stewart Sanderson edwinmorgantrust.com/2026/01/26/e...

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Orphean sprig! Melting baby! Warm chihuahua! #EdwinMorgan reading “Trio”, published in The Second Life (1968) and recorded by Ewan McVicar in 1990 at Tower Studio, Glasgow 🎄❄️

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

... so that our first kiss was like the winter morning moon, and as you shifted in my arms it was the sea changing the shingle that changes it as if for ever ... — from ‘The Unspoken’ by #EdwinMorgan, published in The Second Life (EUP, 1968) 🌒

But Glasgow days and grey weathers, when the rain
beat on the bus shelter and you leaned slightly against me, and the back of your hand touched my hand in the shadows, and nothing was said,
when your hair grazed mine accidentally as we talked in a cafe, yet not quite accidentally,
when I stole a glance at your face as we stood in a doorway and found I was afraid
of what might happen if I should never see it again,
when we met, and met, in spite of such differences
in our lives,
and did the common things that in our feeling
became extraordinary, so that our first kiss
was like the winter morning moon, and as you shifted in my arms
it was the sea changing the shingle that changes it
as if for ever (but we are bound by nothing, but like smoke
to mist or light in water we move, and mix) —
O then it was a story as old as war or man,
and although we have not said it we know it,
and although we have not claimed it we do it,
and although we have not vowed it we keep it,
without a name to the end.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

What was your wish? You wanted more? It’s granted! Up there is a store Of light. It’s breaking now in showers Not of stars but meteors . . . ✨ “Leonids” by #EdwinMorgan, published in Cathures (Carcanet, 2002)

Look now, look quick – a shooting star!
Make your wish! It’s very far
From here to where the active light
Set out and streaked across a night
In Glasgow’s greatly dark November
To die there, a supernal ember.
What was your wish? You wanted more?
It’s granted! Up there is a store
Of light. It’s breaking now in showers
Not of stars but meteors,
Spark after spark, scattering, dying,
You could send your wishes flying
In thousands, born, reborn, delighting
To be part of that bright sighting
Which disappears and yet appears
Again in our unlonely years.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

A spOoky poem from Edwin Morgan’s final collection, Dreams and Other Nightmares. Happy Hallowe’en! — “Horsemen” published here in Centenary Selected Poems (Carcanet 2020)

Horsemen

It was late, a wintry evening, and I was in the old flat
looking out at everything familiar, all the details
of every neighbouring house quite clear under streetlights
when are the corner by the lamp I saw them – horses and their men
talking together, their hoof clatter and whispering
(the Horseman's word I'd read about but cannot speak),
Their great flanks, fetlocks, ancient and out of place
in Glasgow now, under the street lamp at my corner
where they should not have been.
And as I stared at them talking together all at once
every light went out and I was left in darkness with that sound
of hooves, beating, retreating –

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Next Friday: In Translation: A Scottish-Slovenian Poetry Exchange – poets working across Gaelic, Scots & Slovene will share translations of each other’s work & insights into their creative process. Register to attend in person: shorturl.at/6nNtz Or email arts-cclt@glasgow.ac.uk to join online!

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

Nearly forty years later, in 2005, EM wrote another poem for Finlay on his 80th birthday, returning once more to imagery of the sea and ships that the two men loved: “But when at last you come across the ship with eighty / sails, oh what a sight that is to take to heart . . .” ⛵💙

But when at last you come across the ship with eighty
sails, oh what a sight that is to take to heart, with
the white canvas flapping and the rigging snapping as
she churns the ocean through a stiff breeze, and the
sailors since out their seemingly inexhaustible store
of shanties, and the dolphins slice and gleam
and are ahead of the prow like protective things
from a world that is not quite ours, and the
playful captain out of sheer joy blasts his
horn eighty times into the misty morning, and
then with his blue eyes glittering he bangs the
rail – ‘Steady as she goes!’

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

In his breakout collection The Second Life (1968), Morgan included a poem in celebration of Finlay – “maker of boats” – and his careful craftsmanship as a poet and artist.

Maker of boats,
earthships,
the white cradle
with its patchwork quilt,
toys of wood
painted bright as
the zebras’ muzic
in your carousel,
patiently cut
space cleanly!
There’s dark earth
underneath, not far
the North Sea,
a beach goes out
greyer than Dover’s
for ignorant armies.
Scotland is
the little bonfires
in cold mist,
with stubbornness,
the woman knits
late by a window,
a man repairing

nets, a man carv-
ing steady glass,
hears the world,
bends to his work.
You give the pleasure
of made things,
the construction holds
like a net; or it
unfolds in waves
a certain measure,
of affection.
Native, familiar as
apples, tugs,
girls, lettres from
your moulin,
but
drinking tea
you set for Albers
his saucer of milk.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

Happy 100th birthday Ian Hamilton Finlay – poet, visual artist, gardener, and friend of Edwin Morgan. EM & IHF met in the summer of 1961 & supported each other throughout the decade, both been keen experimenters in the field of concrete poetry ... 🧵 [img: “Fish Sheet One”, pub. by IHF in 1963)

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

For #InternationalTranslationDay, Edwin Morgan’s translation of ‘Anyám’ by Hungarian poet Attila József (1905–1937) Published in Collected Translations (Carcanet, 1996)

My Mother

She would hold the mug in both hands,
one Sunday as evening approached
she smiled in her own peaceful way
and sat a moment in the half dark

A small saucepan held the super
she brought home from the fine folks’ house
we went to bed, and I lay thinking
how they had a whole pot to devour –

This was my mother, tiny, early dead,
a washerwoman’s lot is to die early,
her legs shake from the loads she carries,
her head throbs as she bends ironing –

And her mountains are the dirty washing!
She has a tranquilizing cloudscape
of steam, and as for pastures new
the washerwoman has the attic –

She pauses with the iron: I see her.
Her brittle body was broken by
capital, grew thin, grew thinner –
think about it, proletarians –

She was bent, you know, bent from washing,
I never knew how young she was,
she wore a clean apron in her dreams,
and the postman greeted her then –

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

“As clay in clay you cannot catch my thanks, my steadiness, my lateness, my praise” — ’John I’ by Edwin Morgan, written in memory of John Scott, his partner for 16 years, who died in September 1978. Published in Edwin Morgan Twenties: Love (Polygon, 2020)

John I

Nothing will bring him back. I know that, of course I know that. The days
When I do not think of him are few, but if I turn my gaze
On a phantom, on a plot of earth, on a faded photograph of great times, I raise
Nothing, nearly nothing, no, not nothing, it is the something of a pain that stays
Ineradicable and only to be mitigated when I breathe the phrase
I loved you. You must know
It was truly so, although
As clay in clay you cannot catch my thanks, my steadiness, my lateness, my praise.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

The summer grows late, cool, ragged, precious. Clouds like ungainly brooms are sweeping showers across the slates ... — ‘A Crow’ by #EdwinMorgan, published in Sweeping Out the Dark (Carcanet, 1994)

A Crow
The summer grows late, cool, ragged, precious.
Clouds like ungainly brooms are sweeping showers
across the slates. On a dripping lamp-standard
a crow hunches, flaps, hunches. The young painter
with his ring of white sings as he hops in and
out of the rain. The sun bursts what it has been saving
so suddenly, so brilliantly, we are smiling.
It is August still. The leaves hang fast and glisten.
If there were no seasons, who would be singing?
If there was no weather, who would be painting?
If there was no earth turning, we darkly, partly
think, no crow would have a lawn to stamp on
or Aristarchus any globe to dandle.
As not to be born is worst – a crow will tell you,
a worm will tell you – not to be created
crosses galaxies like a shadow of horror.
But created they are; born, I and the painter;
really wet ruffled shiny black half-happy
the feathers of the raucous-hearted clatterer.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

“Oh I can’t speak of that eternal break of white, only of memories crowding in from human kind ...” Remembering dear Edwin Morgan, who died on this day, fifteen years ago. —portrait of Edwin Morgan (1980) by Alexander Moffat —‘100’ from The New Divan, publ. in Collected Poems (Carcanet, 1990)

100

The dead climb with us like the living to the edge.
The clouds sail and the air’s washed blue. For you
and me, the life beyond that sages mention
is this life on a crag above
a line of breakers. Oh I can’t speak
of that eternal break of white, only of
memories crowding in from human kind,
stealthily, brazenly, thankfully, stonily
into that other sea-cave
of my head. Down where the breaker was
closes, darkens, rises, foams, closes; crates
drift across, whirl round
in the ghost of a gale;
a shred of sailcloth
relic of a gale
that really blew slews to the resting-place
the long tide goes out
to leave it, bleaching on its bony rock.
I pick it from the stone,
Hafiz, to bind the leaves of my divan.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

Tonight! Join us at Edinburgh Book Festival for a very special event, where Colin Bramwell, Ellen McAteer, and Gregory Woods will be joined by Ishbel McFarlane to discuss poetry, queerness, translation, and freedom 💚 www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival...

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Keep at them, ladies. This is a feast. This is a midsummer night’s dream... — ‘Midge’ by #EdwinMorgan, published here in Edwin Morgan Twenties: Menagerie (Polygon, 2020) ☀️🪰

Midge

The evening is perfect, my sisters,
The loch lies silent, the air is still,
The sun’s last rays linger over the water
and there is faint smirr, almost a smudge
of summer rain. Sisters, I smell supper,
and what is more perfect than supper?
It is emerging from the wood,
in twos and threes, a dozen in all,
making such a chatter and a clatter
as it reaches the rocky shore,
admiring the arrangements of the light.
See the innocents, my sisters,
the clumsy ones, the laughing ones,
the rolled-up sleeves and the flapping shorts,
there is even a kilt (god of the midges,
you are god to us!) So gather your forces,
leave your tree-trunks, forsake the rushes
to the sweet flesh of face and forearm.
Think of your eggs. What does the egg need?
Blood, and blood. Blood is what the egg needs.
Our men have done their bit, they’ve gone,
it was all they were good for, poor dears. Now
it is up to us. The egg is quietly screaming
for supper, blood, supper, blood, supper!
Attack, my little Draculas, my Amazons!
look at those flailing arms and stamping feet.
They’re running, swatting, swearing, oh they’re hopeless.
Keep at them, ladies. This is a feast.
This is a midsummer night’s dream.
Soon we shall all lie down filled and rich,
and lay, and lay, and lay, and lay.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

We are currently seeking new Trustees, as well as members to join the EMT Advisory Group. If you’re passionate about supporting the development of Scottish poetry and translation and want to help shape the future of the EMT, we would love to hear from you! ⬇️ edwinmorgantrust.com/news/

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

... It is midsummer and till my voice broke, 𝘚𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘶𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 I loved to sing ... ☀️ Edwin Morgan on the melancholy of #midsummer, and remembering those you love. — ‘Fires’, published in Centenary Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2020)

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Unfortunately for Eddie, ‘For the International Poetry Incarnation’ (published in The Second Life, 1968) ended up being his only contribution to that particular revolution – the not-so-rocknroll world of university degree-marking prevented him from attending.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Described as the Woodstock of the poetry world, it was a defining event of the British countercultural movement – a moment when poetry leapt from the page to the stage. 7000+ people gathered to watch performances from the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Alexander Trocchi, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Spacebreaker! Wildship! Starman! ... take poets on your voyages! 🚀 Edwin Morgan’s poem written for the International Poetry Incarnation, which took place at the Royal Albert Hall 60 years ago today. (1/3)

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

We are on a corner, of course we are, then in an alley, smooching. He talks of the desert, distant rivers, Greekery, the absolutes I will always fail to claim... —‘Kissing Edwin Morgan’ by Roddy Lumsden (1966–2020), born #OTD 28 May. From Roddy’s final collection, So Glad I’m Me (Bloodaxe, 2017)

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

the window open the door open coffee on the stove the garden all one song of blackbirds 🐦‍⬛🌼 — ‘Blackbird Marigolds’ by Edwin Morgan, published in Collected Poems (Carcanet, 1990)

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

a bizzzzzinbusy poem for #WorldBeeDay🐝     — ‘Bees’ Nest’ by Edwin Morgan, published in The Second Life (EUP, 1968)

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Edwin Morgan’s translation of ‘Maiskaya pesenka’ by Vladimir Mayakovsky for #MayDay – published in Collected Translations (Carcanet, 1996)

May Day
(a wee sang for laddies and lassies)

Leafikie leafikie green!
We ken the winter’s awa.
Lat’s gang
whaur the swire’s as bricht’s a preen,
me
and you
and us an aa.

Luik at the spring, hingin
her washin owre the schaw.

We’se gang and rin, rinnin and singin,
ying,
singin,
springin an aa.

A lowe on the paper the-day!
A lowe on the sheets by the waa!
Lat’s carry a lowe mair rid nor thae –
flaggies
and banners
and streamers an aa.
Lauchin the spring skelps through
the streets as bricht’s a baa.
We’se gang richt furrit like sojers noo –
you
and me
and us an aa.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

Happy birthday dear Edwin ❤️ — ‘At Eighty’, which EM wrote for the occasion of his 80th birthday, 25 years ago. Published in Cathures (Carcanet, 2002) 🎂

At Eighty

Push the boat out, compañeros,
push the boat out, whatever the sea.
Who says we cannot guide ourselves
through the boiling reefs, black as they are,
the enemy of us all makes sure of it!
Mariners, keep good watch always
for that last passage of blue water
we have heard of and long to reach
(no matter if we cannot, no matter!)
in our eighty-year-old timbers
leaky and patched as they are but sweet
well seasoned with the scent of woods
long perished, serviceable still
in unarrested pungency
of salt and blistering sunlight. Out,
push it all out into the unknown!
Unknown is best, it beckons best,
like distant ships in mist, or bells
clanging ruthless from stormy buoys.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Happy #WorldArtDay! In 2005, Salvador Dalí’s ‘Christ of St John of the Cross’ was voted Scotland’s favourite painting held in a Scottish public collection. — ‘Christ of St John of the Cross’ by #EdwinMorgan, publ. in Beyond the Sun: Scotland’s Favourite Paintings (Luath Press, 2007).

Christ of St John of the Cross

Salvador Dalí

It is not of this world, and yet it is,
And that is how it should be.
Strong light hits back and the arms
Coming from where we cannot see,
Ought not to see, another dimension
For another time. At this time, we
Share the life of bay and boat
With simply painted fishermen
Who give no Amen
Even if clouds both apocalyptic and real
Made them look up and feel
What they had to feel
Of shattering amazement, fear,
Protection, and a wash of glory.
Was it an end coming near?
Was it a beginning coming near?
What happened to the thorns and blood and sweat?
What happened to the hands like claws the whipcord muscles?
Has the artist never seen Grünewald?
‘I have to tell you John of the cross called,
Said to remind you light and death once met.’

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

How often will I think of you, until our dying steps forget this light, forget that we ever knew the happy glen, or that I ever said, We must jump into the sun, and we jumped into the sun. — ‘From a City Balcony’ by #EdwinMorgan, published in Centenary Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2020) ☀️

How often when I think of you the day grows bright!
Our silent love
wanders in Glen Fruin with the butterflies and cuckoos –
bring me the drowsy country thing! Let it drift above the traffic
by the open window with a cloud of witnesses –
a sparkling burn, white lambs, the blaze of gorse,
the cuckoos calling madly, the real white clouds over us,
white butterflies about your hand in the short hot grass,
and then the witness was my hand closing on yours,
again and again till you sighed and turned for love.
Your breast and thighs were blazing like the gorse.
I covered your great fire in silence there.
We let the day grow old along the grass.
It was in the silence the love was.

Footsteps and witnesses! In this Glasgow balcony who pours
such joy like mountain water? It brims, it spills over and over
down to the parched earth and the relentless wheels.
How often will I think of you, until
our dying steps forget this light, forget
that we ever knew the happy glen,
or that I ever said, We must jump into the sun,
and we jumped into the sun.

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Happy #WorldBookDay! 📚 Edwin Morgan’s personal library of ~13,000 books was moved to the Mitchell Library in 2004, but in his nursing home he kept a small collection...

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Have you any magic charms To keep the grey ones and the green woods wild and throbbing still? – ‘Wolf Days’ by Edwin Morgan 🐺 published in Cathures (Carcanet, 2002) #WorldWildlifeDay

Wolf Days

The wolf looked down and sniffed the air from Blythswood Hill.
Evening plovers, even plump ones, nah, not worth his skill.
Saw a dainty throat a roe deer ready for the threat and trot and thrill
Of wolf-blood kill – blood and bits to slug your fill,
Hot blood to bristle through the mist and chill.
Where’s your coat of arms
Have you any magic charms
To keep the grey ones and the green woods wild and throbbing still?

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Sharing this wonderful portrait of Edwin Morgan by Alasdair Gray for #GrayDay! Hope our friends at @agrayarchive.bsky.social have a great evening celebrating 90 years of the inimitable Alasdair Gray 🎉 Image credit: Glasgow Life Museums 🎨

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