Product Description

For years, Scotland has nurtured the connection between literature and art. This collection adds a further dimension to this flowering connection between poetry and painting. Topping the list of Scotland's favourite paintings is Salvador Dali's Christ of St John of the Cross, but also included are poignant classics such as Avril Paton's Windows in the West and Sir Henry Raeburn's Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch. Edwin Morgan, Scotland's National Poet, was so fascinated and inspired by the paintings that he wrote a poem to honour each one. The result is a wonderfully moving collection.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29940 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-01
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 47 pages

About the Author
Edwin Morgan was born in Glasgow in 1920. His studies at Glasgow University were interrupted in 1940 when he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, but he returned to university and graduated with a First Class Honours degree. Turning down a scholarship at Oxford, he lectured at Glasgow University until 1980. He has published numerous volumes of poetry and translated works from many languages. His various awards include the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2000 and the prestigious Weidenfeld Prize for Translation in 2001. In 1999 he became Glasgow's first Poet Laureate, and in 2004 was given the title of Scotland's National Poet.

Customer Reviews

LIGHT BEYOND THE SUN
This book is concerned primarily with Morgan's poetic response to the results of the Glasgow Herald Newspaper's 2005 Survey of Scottish Paintings, which was an attempt to find the ten most favourite in Scotland's public collections.
The first section summarises the background to how the survey came to happen and consequently receiving Edwin Morgan's poetry unrequested at the Herald.Gladly,it gives the results of the survey, which I was not aware of at the time.
This section goes on to document Morgan's other successful connections with the Herald and then leads us through a commentary on the individual paintings and Morgan's own interpretations in poetic form.The commentary is considered and gives insight into both the background of the paintings themselves and to what Morgan made of them through his poetry.
The short essay following this section is about the relation between poetry and art. It is a comprehensive and informative overview of the history of this relationship, from which I learned involved some of my favorite artists(did you know Picasso and Michelangelo were also poets? Of course you did!)and it also succinctly gives Edwin Morgan his place amongst both his Scottish peers and the international poetry milieu. It makes mention of the importance Morgan gives to his personal possession of a favourite painting by Joan Eardley and comments on a subsequent poem written by Morgan dedicated to her, about it.
The essay finishes by dealing with the poems written by Edwin Morgan specifically for the ten paintings in the book, praising Morgan's 'intrinsic optimism of curiosity' as described by one Marshall Walker and by Alan Riach, as 'a curious dialogue...an open conversation arising from the past but directed towards the future...'
Of the paintings and poems contained there-in, each of us will surely have our own favourites, either instantly or after some considered viewing and reading. 'Windows in the West', by Avril Paton is one of mine, as is Edwin's interpretation. For just as the artist captures the myriad of city life symbolised by one single tenement block or two 'closes', so too does the poet capture the variety, diversity and essential ordinariness of lives within the 'seventy-eyed creature' as he calls it.
Another favourite of mine and the winner of the survey, is Dali's, 'Christ of St.John of the Cross.' Glasgow's most famous painting and Edwin Morgan reflects the painting's always present and essential mystery felt by most who have seen it, with a poem of subtlety and depth which ends with the lines, 'I have to tell you John of the Cross called,/Said to remind you light and death once met.'/
The bonus of Liz Lochead's comments on Scotland's Poet Laureate's manner of working, his intuitive and sparsely edited lines, is just that; 'a wee gem', to top off a treasure of a book, which led me to greater appreciation of Morgan's mastery of observation coupled with his truthful opinion of the paintings as recorded in his stanzas. Sometimes humourous, sometimes disdainful, sometimes delightful, often questioning, these verses give us a commentary on the subjects, the artists, the colours, the symbolism-political and personal. Highly Recommended!

a perfect match.
guess what everyone i know is getting for birthdays this year? this utterly beautiful book contains reproductions of 10 of scotland's favourite paintings, according to a poll, with 10 matching poems from edwin moirgan, one of scotland's greatest modern poets, and an afterword by our other national treasure, liz lochhead. it's a tiny little art course, from rembrandt to joan eardley, via dali and el greco, (whose "lady in a fur wrap" has long been my personal favourite), but accompanied by poetry and a very insightful foreword. if you know anyone who likes either paintings or poetry, buy them this book!