Poetry
From Glasgow to Saturn
Edwin Morgan · 1973
Synopsis
A collection that goes from Glasgow to Saturn, as its title announces. It contains monologues: an old man talking to his cat, a woman on a bus, a drunk, a professor of apocalypse. Science-fiction poems in which astronauts discover a message, in which a creature learns English word by word. Sonnets. Texts made of letters that move about the page. And pieces on the demolitions of Glasgow, district by district.
Context
The volume appeared in 1973 and gathers what its author had been doing for ten years in all directions at once: dramatic monologues, concrete poetry, science fiction in verse, sonnets, translations. This refusal to choose a single manner long made him seem scattered, and it is what is admired today. The pieces about the city coincide with the demolitions in the centre and the construction of the large housing estates: the Glasgow they describe was disappearing while he wrote.
Who it is for
About a hundred pages in English, including a few texts in Scots. Nothing in French. The concrete poems are as much to be looked at as read.
Prizes and reception
The most widely read of the twenty collections by its author, whom his country eventually made its official poet.