Friday, August 20, 2010

sad passing

I'm not usually one to get worked up about poetry - especially not
Scotish poetry which I mostly find contrived, mawkish or both - but
there are one or two poets whom I hold in very high esteem: Stevie
Smith, TS Eliot, Sylvia Plath. Amongst that group also figures
Scottish Poet, Edwin Morgan who died yesterday. A remarkable man whom
I had the honour of meeting once in the now-vanished John Smith's
bookshop in Glasgow, modest, unassuming, charming. He signed my CD
copy of his collaboration with saxophonist Tommy Smith, "The Beasts of
Scotland" (containing the brilliantly funny "Wolf"), we exchanged a
word or two and parted.
A lovely man. Irreplaceable.