The Edwin Morgan Trust

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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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 👇🏽

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

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 …

🚀 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...

The Loch Ness Monster’s Song Visit the post for more.

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...

🌈 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

“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...

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...

About the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award Visit the post for more.

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...

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...

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.

Colloquy in Glaschu by Edwin Morgan God but le son du cor, Columba sighed to Kentigern, est triste au fond silvarum! Frater, said Kentigern, I see no harm. J'aime le son du cor, when day has died, deep in the bois, and oystercatchers rise before the fowler as he trudges home and sermo lupi loosens the grey loam. À I’horizon lointain is paradise, abest silentium, le cor éclate – – et meurt, Columba mused, but Kentigern replied, renaît et se prolonge. The cell is filled with song. Outside, puer cantat. Veni venator sings the gallus kern. The saints dip startled cups in Mungo’s well.

Today, 13 January, is the Feast Day of St Mungo (AKA St Kentigern), patron saint of Glasgow. Edwin Morgan’s “Colloquy in Glaschu” imagines a conversation between St Mungo & St Columba.

From CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020
#poem #poetry
1/6
www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

(written in bright green text, in a monospaced font on a black background, to emulate an old CRT computer monitor; the text is divided up into blocks of five letters each) The Computer's Second Christmas Card by Edwin Morgan goodk kkkkk unjam ingwe nches lass? start again goodk lassw enche sking start again kings tart! again sorry goodk ingwe ncesl ooked outas thef? unmix asloo kedou tonth effff rewri tenow goodk ingwe ncesl asloo kedou tonth effff fffff unjam feast ofsai ntste venst efanc utsai ntrew ritef easto fstep toeso rryan dsons orry! start again good? yesgo odkin gwenc eslas looke dout? doubt wrong track start again goodk ingwe ncesl asloo kedou tonth efeas tofst ephph phphp hphph unjam phphp repea tunja mhphp scrub carol hphph repea tscru bcaro lstop subst itute track merry chris tmasa ndgoo dnewy earin 1699? check digit banks orryi n1966 endme ssage

goodk kkkkk unjam ingwe nches lass? start again goodk
lassw enche sking start again kings tart! again sorry…

—Edwin Morgan, “The Computer’s Second Christmas Card”
published in COLLECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 1990
#poem #poetry #concretepoetry
www.carcanet.co.uk/978185754188...

Treat yersel with a listen to this!

This is THE Christmas poem for me, in its pure joy and wish for better things in the new year. 'Trio' sums up Edwin Morgan's wild optimism, which many of us need now...

Monsters of the year
go blank, are scattered back,
can't bear this march of three...
www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/trio/

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 🎄❄️

(written in bright green text, in a monospaced font on a black background, to emulate an old CRT computer monitor) The Computer's First Christmas Card by Edwin Morgan jollymerry hollyberry jollyberry merryholly happyjolly jollyjelly jellybelly bellymerry hollyheppy jollyMolly marryJerry merryHarry hoppyBarry heppyJarry bobbyheppy berryjorry jorryjolly moppyjelly Mollymerry Jerryjolly bellyboppy jorryhoppy hollymoppy Barrymerry Jarryhappy happyboppy boppyjolly jollymerry merrymerry merrymerry merryChris ammerryasa Chrismerry asMERRYCHR YSANTHEMUM

jollymerry
hollyberry
jollyberry
merryholly
happyjolly
jollyjelly
jellybelly
bellymerry
hollyheppy
jollyMolly
marryJerry
merryHarry
hoppyBarry…

—Edwin Morgan, “The Computer’s First Christmas Card”
first published in THE SECOND LIFE, @edinburghup.bsky.social 1968
#poem #poetry #concretepoetry

A poem by Edwin Morgan inscribed into a flagstone on Candleriggs in Glasgow, just outside the City Halls. Born in 1920, Morgan became the city's first poet laureate in 1999.

Cont./

#glasgow #streetart #poetry #edwinmorgan #glasgowcoatofarms #streetpoetry

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.

... 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) 🌒

Computer's First Christmas Card: a Poetry/Coding workshop Poetry Coding Workshop with the Edwin Morgan Collection. An introduction to coding and poetry with Michael Mullen and Claire Quigley.

Computer’s First Christmas Card: a Poetry/Coding workshop

Thur 4 Dec
Mitchell Library, Glasgow.
Free

An introduction to coding and poetry with Michael Mullen and Claire Quigley.

There will also be a chance to see some items from the Edwin Morgan collection.

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/computers-...

Computer's First Christmas Card: a Poetry/Coding workshop Poetry Coding Workshop with the Edwin Morgan Collection. An introduction to coding and poetry with Michael Mullen and Claire Quigley.

Computer’s First Christmas Card: a Poetry/Coding workshop
4 Dec, Glasgow – free

Inspired by Edwin Morgan’s poem, attendees at this Poetry/Coding workshop will code a festive poem & leave with a handmade Christmas card! No experience of coding or poetry necessary
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/computers-...

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)

Call for papers for a special issue of the *Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry* on concrete & visual poetries. Edited by Colin Herd & Greg Thomas. 250-300-word abstracts to ConcreteAndVisualPoetries@gmail.com by 10 Jan 2026
poetry.openlibhums.org/news/867/

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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 –

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)

Edwin Morgan Aberdeen Train Rubbing a glistening circle on the steamed-up window I framed a pheasant in a field of mist. The sun was a great red thing somewhere low, struggling with the milky scene. In the furrows a piece of glass winked into life, hypnotized the silly dandy; we hooted past him with his head cocked, contemplating a bottle-end, and this was the last of October, a Chinese moment in the Mearns.

Rubbing a glistening circle
on the steamed-up window I framed
a pheasant in a field of mist…

—Edwin Morgan, “Aberdeen Train”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020
#poem #poetry
www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

In Translation: A Scottish-Slovenian Poetry Exchange In Translation: A Scottish-Slovenian Poetry Exchange

In Translation: A Scottish-Slovenian Poetry Exchange
7 Nov @uofglasgow.bsky.social – free

The @edmorgantrust.bsky.social brings together four poets working across Scottish Gaelic, Scots, & Slovene for a two-part exchange in Edinburgh & Ljubljana
events.bookitbee.com/smlc/in-tran...

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!

A picture of Ian Hamilton Finlay flying paper planes at his home, Stonypath.

100 years today since the birth of Ian Hamilton Finlay. Happy birthday IHF.

Today is the centenary of Ian Hamilton Finlay: one of Scotland's most innovative poets and artists. In August the SPL collaborated with the Little Sparta Trust for an afternoon of poetry at Little Sparta featuring Christopher Crawford, Nasim Rebecca Asl, Nazaret Ranea & Janette Ayachi #IHFcentenary

Today we celebrate the Centenary of the birth of Scottish poet, artist and gardener Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006) by hosting a special screening of The Boat in the Writing Room: retracing the origins of Stonypath, Little Sparta tonight (Tues 28 Oct) 7-9pm

Free. To book info@pierartscentre.com

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!’

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 . . .”

⛵💙