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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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Glasgow Review of Books @glasgowrevbooks.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Last November, Gaelic and Scots were recognised as official languages in Scotland for the first time. As the new editors of GRB, we are pleased to present new trilingual poems this National Poetry Day by Harry Josephine Giles. tinyurl.com/3w8ahz3f

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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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Katherine Mendelsohn @katherinemend.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Some photos of the 'Widening the Horizon: Scotland's Translators for the Stage' event @summerhallarts.bsky.social this week. [photographer credit: Isolde Nash] cc @magnorththeatre.bsky.social @scotsocplaywrights.bsky.social @edmorgantrust.bsky.social @playwrightsstudio.bsky.social

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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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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 13/08/2026

Bring back the wolf! He’s not long gone, you know. He went out when sheep came in. Sheep cleared men and women. Now let wolves clear sheep… —Edwin Morgan, “Wolf” in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet 2020) A #poem for #InternationalWolfDay 🐺 www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

from BEASTS OF SCOTLAND

Wolf
by Edwin Morgan

Bring back the wolf!
He’s not long gone, you know.
He went out when sheep came in.
Sheep cleared men and women.
Now let wolves clear sheep.
A little wildness please,
a little howling to be heard from the chalets,
a circling of yellow eyes at Aviemore.
That legend much discredited,
of the following of the sledges,
let us test it in the Cairngorms,
in the winter playgrounds with their merry cries,
in the white paths through the forest.
It would be good to get not a few scalps
to crawl with fear when they hear
that eerie arctic song
as one by one the muzzles
lift and open in the dark,
and the dark is long.

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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 · 03/07/2026

The winner(s) will be announced on Tuesday 18 August at the Edinburgh Book Festival, where we’ll also be launching A Home in Space, a new selection of Morgan’s concrete, visual and sound poetry. Join us for this special evening of celebration! edwinmorgantrust.com/2026/07/03/e...

edwinmorgantrust.com

Event: Edwin Morgan Trust: Poetry, Performance, and Prizes

Tuesday 18 August, 6:45–8 p.m., Edinburgh International Book Festival.Tickets £15.50 … This lively showcase, hosted by Ryan Van Winkle, features some of the best of Scotland’s contemporary po…

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Congratulations to the six poets shortlisted for the 2026 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award! ✨Tom Bailey ✨Emmett Coleman ✨Zainab Imran ✨Flora Leask Arizpe ✨Kate Millar ✨Caitlin Palmer Find out more about the shortlist & read a selection of their poems on our website: edwinmorgantrust.com/2026/07/03/e...

edwinmorgantrust.com

EMPA 2026: Shortlist

The Edwin Morgan Trust is delighted to announce the poets shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award 2026! Edwin Morgan Poetry Award 2026 shortlist Tom Bailey for Bonaly Reservoir Tom Bailey is …

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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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Colin Bramwell @brambrella.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

A pleasure to go back to Ox for the Oxford Weidenfeld prize. Unexpectedly, Fower Pessoas won the prize and all. Its last Scottish/Scots winner was Edwin Morgan, for his translation of Racine's Phèdra, back in 2001 (also published by Carcanet). Here's what the judges had to say about mine:

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Damian Barr @damianbarr.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

It’s Pride Month in the UK. Not sure we’ve ever needed it more. Here’s a documentary I made for Radio 4 on the history, history-makers and future of Pride. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

bbc.co.uk

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, Fifty Years of Pride

Damian Barr examines how Pride has helped bring about change for the LGBTQ+ community.

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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 · 28/04/2026

Please take a look at Greg’s crowdfunding campaign to support the publication of ‘Crafting Arcadia: On Collaborating with Ian Hamilton Finlay’, which will shed new light on Finlay as a poet and artist, a personality, a collaborator, a friend, and sometimes an adversary ⬇️

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grantrintoul.bsky.social @grantrintoul.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Still my favourite found poem.

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Reposted by The Edwin Morgan Trust

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 27/04/2026

Push the boat out, compañeros, push the boat out, whatever the sea… —Edwin Morgan, “At Eighty”: a poem written for his own 80th birthday Edwin Morgan (1920–2010) was born #OTD, 27 April – a 🎂 🧵 #poem #poetry 1/14 www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/eighty-0/

At Eighty
by Edwin Morgan

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 · 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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Scottish Poetry Library @byleaveswelive.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

🖋️ NEW SPL BLOG POST! Taylor Strickland writes on the Corbenic Poetry Path which "meanders through uplands, woodlands, and riverside, featuring some of the country’s most notable poets, among them Kathleen Jamie, Peter Mackay and John Glenday." www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/2026/04/corb...

scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk

Corbenic Poetry Path

Creative Development Officer Taylor Strickland writes about the 10th anniversary of a unique poetry path Jon Plunkett’s normally warm Belfast accent cools. Over a call, he reveals the more challenging...

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 03/04/2026

Three o’clock. Yer hot cross buns ur in the oven fur another nine minutes. The soup will be tested at some point the mora, or maybe oan Sunday… —Charles Lang, “Good Friday (After Edwin Morgan)” from NEW WRITING SCOTLAND 40 (ASL, 2022) #Easter #poem #poetry #GoodFriday asls.org.uk/publications...

Charles Lang
Good Friday

After Edwin Morgan

Three o’clock. Yer hot cross buns ur in the oven
fur another nine minutes. The soup will be tested at some point
the mora, or maybe oan Sunday. The world is oor oyster!
There’ll be nae eggs this year fur a few reasons.

I press play oan the telly: a recordin ae Tuesday night’s Eastenders
preceded by the last minute n a hof ae Tuesday night’s news.
That feels like such a long time ago. The days aw feel the same
but everythin is movin quickly. I fast forward through the theme tune.

lan is feelin guilty fur the part he played in Dennis’s death.
Blackmail is a wonderful thing. Dotty is usin it tae take control ae the Arches.
Will Sharon ever find oot? Will Mick sell the Queen Vic?
Did Carole Baskin kill her disappeared husband n feed him tae her lucrative tigers?

These ur things ye need tae think aboot. The questions
that need tae be answered. Is it possible tae eat mer than three
cream crackers withoot a drink a watter? How many days
will it take me tae complete this 1000-piece New Yorker jigsaw?

TBC. Maybe I’ll dae it the mora, maybe I’ll dae it next week.
Tell ye wit I’ll get most ae it oot the wiy the mora, efter ma soup,
takin a break at aboot three o’clock fur a wee coffee.
The hot cross buns, by the way: outstandin.

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 03/04/2026

…ye’ll maybe think it’s a – funny day to be celebrating – well, no, but ye see I wasny working, and I like to celebrate when I’m no working… —Edwin Morgan, “Good Friday” from CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020 #Easter #poem #poetry #GoodFriday www.carcanet.co.uk/978178410996...

Good Friday
Edwin Morgan

Three o’clock. The bus lurches
round into the sun. “D’s this go –”
he flops beside me – “right along Bath Street?
– Oh tha’s, tha’s all right, see I’ve
got to get some Easter eggs for the kiddies.
I’ve had a wee drink, ye understand –
ye’ll maybe think it’s a – funny day
to be celebrating – well, no, but ye see
I wasny working, and I like to celebrate
when I’m no working – I don’t say it’s right
I’m no saying it’s right, ye understand – ye understand?
But anyway tha’s the way I look at it –
I’m no boring you, eh? – ye see today,
take today, I don’t know what today’s in aid of,
whether Christ was – crucified or was he –
rose fae the dead like, see what I mean?
You’re an educatit man, you can tell me –
– Aye, well. There ye are. It’s been seen
time and again, the working man
has nae education, he jist canny – jist
hasny got it, know what I mean,
he’s jist bliddy ignorant – Christ aye,
bliddy ignorant. Well –” The bus brakes violently,
he lunges for the stair, swings down – off,
into the sun for his Easter eggs,
on very‍‍
‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ nearly‍‍
‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ steady‍‍
‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ legs.

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 02/04/2026

Larks they were in lift-off, swallows in soaring. Soaring metal is flight and nest together… —Edwin Morgan, “A Home in Space” published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020 #poem #poetry #Artemis www.carcanet.co.uk/978178410996...

A Home in Space
Edwin Morgan

Laid-back in orbit, they found their minds.
They found their minds were very clean and clear.
Clear crystals in swarms outside were their fireflies and larks.
Larks they were in lift-off, swallows in soaring.
Soaring metal is flight and nest together.
Together they must hatch.
Hatches let the welders out.
Out went the whitesuit riggers with frames as light as air.
Air was millions under lock and key.
Key-ins had computers wild on Saturday nights.
Nights, days, months, years they lived in space.
Space shone black in their eyes.
Eyes, hands, food-tubes, screens, lenses, keys were one.
One night – or day – or month – or year – they all –
all gathered at the panel and agreed –
agreed to cut communication with –
with the earth base – and it must be said they were –
were cool and clear as they dismantled the station and –
and gave their capsule such power that –
that they launched themselves outwards –
outwards in an impeccable trajectory, that band –
that band of tranquil defiers, not to plant any –
any home with roots but to keep a –
a voyaging generation voyaging, and as far –
as far as there would ever be a home in space –
space that needs time and time that needs life.

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The Gaelic Books Council @leughleabhar.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Calling all Gaelic publishers and writers! 📣 There's less than a month to the deadline for applications to The Gaelic Literature Awards 2026! Send in your published books and unpublished manuscripts before Friday 1st of May: www.gaelicbooks.org/support-for-...

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The Alasdair Gray Archive @agrayarchive.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

We are delighted to announce that the Ubiquitous Chip murals by Alasdair Gray have been Category B listed by Historic Environment Scotland as a result of our support of the designation application!

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 17/03/2026

“the word Metropolis – even as I type it here I feel it – stirs my blood” @gregchthomas.bsky.social looks at how Glasgow’s post-war high-rise construction gave ‘concrete poetry’ its most site-specific connotation for Edwin Morgan #poetry #concretepoetry www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2023/11/i-am...

thebottleimp.org.uk

‘I am Iron Bard’: Edwin Morgan, Concrete Poetry and the Glasgow High Rises - The Bottle Imp

In 1964, Edwin Morgan wrote a concrete poem in homage to the nineteenth-century engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a bridge-shaped graphic verse probably intended to mimic Brunel’s design for the Clift...

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The Edwin Morgan Trust @edmorgantrust.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Concrete Poetry Workshop Inspired by Edwin Morgan Discover the strange & wonderful world of Edwin Morgan’s concrete poetry & create your own visual poems in this workshop led by Greg Thomas! 🗓️ Fri 15 May 🕑 2–4 p.m. 📍 Paisley Town Hall 🎟️ £12 (£10 conc.) paisleybookfestival.com/programme/co...

paisleybookfestival.com

Concrete Poetry Workshop Inspired by Edwin Morgan | Paisley Book Festival

Discover the strange and wonderful world of Edwin Morgan’s concrete poetry and create your own visual poems in this workshop led by Greg Thomas.

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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 Alasdair Gray Archive @agrayarchive.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

PLEASE SHARE! 🌿 Alasdair Gray & David Stephen: Eden in North Lanarkshire Sat 14 March 2026, Palacerigg Country Park Visitor Centre. An illustrated afternoon celebrating art, nature & Scotland’s industrial heartland. Book via link below 👇🏽

eventbrite.com

Alasdair Gray & David Stephen: Eden in North Lanarkshire

An illustrated talk discussing two iconic Scots as part of 'Cumbernauld Creates at Palacerigg', a new arts and writing festival.

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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 · 04/02/2026

🚀 A Home in Space: exploring Edwin Morgan’s concrete poetry Sun 15 March | 11am–12pm | online | £5 An interactive workshop at this year’s StAnza festival led by Greg Thomas & Julie Johnstone, who will guide participants through Morgan’s speculative work. edwinmorgantrust.com/2026/02/04/a...

edwinmorgantrust.com

A Home in Space: Selected Concrete, Visual and Sound Poetry

A Home in Space: Selected Concrete, Visual and Sound PoetryPre-order a copy from Reaktion Books Edited by Greg Thomas and Julie Johnstone, this volume brings together, for the first time, the full …

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Reposted by The Edwin Morgan Trust

Poems on the Underground @poemsonthetube.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

Poems on the Underground Celebrating 40 Years Poem of the Week January 31st The Loch Ness Monster's Song by Edwin Morgan poemsontheunderground.org/the-loch-nes...

poemsontheunderground.org

The Loch Ness Monster’s Song

Visit the post for more.

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The Alasdair Gray Archive @agrayarchive.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

🌈 Queer History Month 🌈 Join our month-long digital screening of Of Us & Others by Maya Rose Edwards—intimate, anonymous queer conversations across Glasgow, exploring kinship, care & imagined futures. 🎥 1–28 February- link in bio to watch on our YouTube

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 01/02/2026

“So what was Glasgow like to a young gay writer in that period … You don’t go silent. You circumvent, you encode, you enfabulate … You work by methods not unlike those used by dissidents in authoritarian regimes.” —Edwin Morgan, “Transgression in Glasgow” #LGBTplusHM 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ asls.org.uk/publications...

I already felt myself to be ‘different’, and had had gay experiences, but without having the word ‘gay’ and without having much knowledge of the things I was increasingly drawn to. It was a time of silences and inhibitions and guilts and quests and mistakes and very gradual understanding.

So what was Glasgow like to a young gay writer in that period from say the late 1930s through to the 1950s (I can’t speak about wartime Glasgow because I wasn’t there, I was abroad in the army from 1940 to 1946 – that’s another story, of which perhaps a little, later on). Physically, visually, the city was very different from what it is today after the massive stone-cleaning, smoke abatement, and general refurbishment of recent years. It was a dark city. I’d like to quote from a little article I recently wrote about this. The piece was written for a public brochure about Glasgow, but I quote it because it has some coded homosexual references. It’s called ‘Fog City’:

Without being nostalgic about it, I have a strong recollection of the great Glasgow fogs of the decade after the Second World War. In the spruced-up city of today, these are now no more than memories, and no doubt thought of as a good riddance, but to a writer (or indeed any artist) dark cities can be as attractive as bright ones. At the end of the 1940s, Glasgow was still heavily industrialized, with many soot-blackened and grime-encrusted buildings, and with smoke pouring from thousands of coal-burning chimneys. It was also a city of unabashed and prolific smokers. And of course it is a northern city of early winter evenings. So its fogs could be spectacular. One night in 1947 or 1948 I was returning by train from London, and when I got into Central Station I could not understand why such a crowd of people was

massed at the entrance. I soon found out why. Gordon Street was a silent wall of impenetrable grey. There were no buses, trams, taxis or cars to be seen or heard. It was a stricken, immobile place. No one could get home. I booked a room in the Central Hotel, and as I slipped between the sheets I reflected it was the first time I had stayed at a hotel in my own town: an experience! These fogs penetrated everywhere; in the cinemas each film looked like Quai des brumes, and the Golden Divans in Green’s Playhouse were more than usually seductive. The long cinema queues of those pre-booking days, snaking round whole blocks, huddled together as if afraid some segment might break off and be lost for ever. We did not curse the fog: it was simply one recurring phase of the environment. Half-sinister, half-romantic wanderings by the River Kelvin seemed incomplete unless the nose-prickling waves of an oncoming fog combined with the acrid but haunting smell of the scummy effluent on the water to fix a future memory unmodified by anything politically correct.
(Moira Burgess, Reading Glasgow).

Green’s Playhouse is a huge cinema, which was famous as a place of gay resort for many years; people came to it from far and near, and on a foggy night, when you could hardly see the screen, anything could and did happen. The management would periodically conduct a sudden blitz on the activities, using some of their better-looking staff as agents provocateurs, who would sit beside you, make advances, and if you responded would march you out to the foyer and declare that you were barred. You left it for a week or two, came back, and no one noticed. It was a great Glasgow institution, and there must have been many sad hearts when the building was demolished. Another reference in the article which would say more to some people than to others is the night scene by the River Kelvin: Kelvingrove Park was (and is) one of the main trolling areas after dark, and also, perhaps inevitably, a haunt of

muggers, so my description of it as half-romantic and half-sinister contains or conceals that other resonance.

Perhaps the fog that I used in that passage, though perfectly real, can also be taken as a metaphor. Gay contacts, gay friendships, were by no means unobtainable but took place in an atmosphere of secrecy, of deception and pretence and machination. Information was by word of mouth; there were no gay clubs or magazines or videos, and if any establishment such as a pub attracted a gay clientele it could never advertise the fact. The shadow of illegality, of the severe penalties of being caught (not only of imprisonment, but also social ostracism), hung like a cloud in the background all the time. I don’t forget how I happened to be in a cinema (not Green’s Playhouse!) at a time shortly after Sir John Gielgud had been arrested and charged with persistent importuning of male persons, and when his name appeared on the screen of a film that was being shown the audience uttered a hiss of disapproval. That was the climate of the period, and it meant that most gays, whether they wanted to or not, were leading double lives. And can I remind you that this situation lasted not until 1967, when the law was changed in England and Wales, but until 1980, when the separate Scottish legal system at last got round to a degree of liberalisation. So it was an oppressive time, and if you are a writer, a poet, you have to find ways and means of dealing with it. You don’t go silent. You circumvent, you encode, you enfabulate, you invent parallel or analogous worlds. You work by methods not unlike those used by dissidents in authoritarian regimes. From the 1950s onwards, I knew that I wanted somehow to write about that side of my life, and that side of my life in Glasgow and Scotland, and I developed my own strategies for doing so.

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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

Open to poets under 30 who were born, raised or currently live in Scotland and have not yet published a full-length collection, the #EMPA rewards outstanding promise with a prize of £20,000, which may be split between up to four poets. edwinmorgantrust.com/2021/11/15/a...

edwinmorgantrust.com

About the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award

Visit the post for more.

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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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Reposted by The Edwin Morgan Trust

Scottish Poetry Library @byleaveswelive.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Congratulations to Karen Solie on winning the TS Eliot Prize for her most recent collection Wellwater, published by @picadorbooks.bsky.social Karen Solie teaches for half the year at St Andrews University and lives the rest of her time in Canada. Karen is part of @northseapoets.bsky.social group.

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