The Poetry Association of Scotland (or PAS), formerly known as the Scottish Association for the Speaking of Verse, is a public, membership-based literary society founded in 1924 principally by John Masefield (along with other figures such as Marion Angus and Hugh MacDiarmid).[citation needed]
John Edward Masefield was an English poet and writer and the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until 1967. Among his best known works are the children's novels The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights, and the poems "The Everlasting Mercy" and "Sea-Fever".
Marion Emily Angus (1865–1946) was a Scottish poet who wrote in the Scots vernacular or Braid Scots, defined variously as a dialect of English or a language closely related to it. Her prose writings were mainly in standard English. She is seen as a forerunner of a Scottish renaissance in inter-war poetry, as her verse marked a departure from the Lallans tradition of Robert Burns in a direction similar to that of Hugh MacDiarmid, Violet Jacob and others.
Christopher Murray Grieve, known by his pen name Hugh MacDiarmid, was a Scottish poet, journalist, essayist and political figure. Grieve wrote his earliest work, including Annals of the Five Senses, in English. However, he is best known for the work he published in "synthetic Scots", a literary version of the Scots language that he himself developed. From the early 1930s onwards MacDiarmid made greater use of English, sometimes a "synthetic English" that was supplemented by scientific and technical vocabularies.
In its present form, the Association, which is a registered charity, runs an annual series of monthly poetry readings featuring invited poets from both Scottish and international circuits, as well as regular talks on poetry-related topics by distinguished speakers, including its biennial Hugh MacDiarmid Lecture. The Association's events in recent years have generally, though not exclusively, been held in the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh.
A poetry reading is a public oral recitation or performance of poetry.
The Scottish Poetry Library was founded in 1984 by poet Tessa Ransford. It originally had two staff members, including Scottish poet, Tom Hubbard, and 300 books, but has since expanded to some 30,000 items of Scottish and international poetry. The library contains material in Scotland's three indigenous languages: Scottish Gaelic, Lowland Scots, and English.
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian, it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore.
Although a single-tier organisation today, in past decades the Association had multiple area branches throughout Scotland.[citation needed]
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Sharing a border with England to the southeast, Scotland is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, by the North Sea to the northeast and by the Irish Sea to the south. In addition to the mainland, situated on the northern third of the island of Great Britain, Scotland has over 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.
Post-holders past and present
The following comprises only a partial and non-consecutive list of most recent names:
Douglas Eaglesham Dunn, OBE is a Scottish poet, academic, and critic. He lives in Scotland.
Edwin George Morgan was a Scottish poet and translator who was associated with the Scottish Renaissance. He is widely recognised as one of the foremost Scottish poets of the 20th century. In 1999, Morgan was made the first Glasgow Poet Laureate. In 2004, he was named as the first Scottish national poet: The Scots Makar.
Norman Alexander MacCaig FRSE FRSL ARSA DLitt OBE was a Scottish poet and teacher. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity.
Norman Kreitman was a psychiatric researcher and academic, based in Edinburgh, primarily known for coining the term parasuicide. He was also a published poet of some distinction, and wrote perceptively on the philosophy of art - in particular, on the psychology of metaphor.
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Sorley MacLean was a Scottish Gaelic poet, described by the Scottish Poetry Library as "one of the major Scottish poets of the modern era" because of his "mastery of his chosen medium and his engagement with the European poetic tradition and European politics". Nobel Prize Laureate Seamus Heaney credited MacLean with saving Scottish Gaelic poetry.
Lallans, is a term that was traditionally used to refer to the Scots language as a whole. However, more recent interpretations assume it refers to the dialects of south and central Scotland, while Doric, a term once used to refer to Scots dialects in general, is now generally seen to refer to the Mid Northern Scots dialects spoken in the north-east of Scotland.
Modern Scottish Poetry: An Anthology of the Scottish Renaissance 1920-1945 was a poetry anthology edited by Maurice Lindsay, and published in 1946 by Faber and Faber.
The Scottish Renaissance was a mainly literary movement of the early to mid-20th century that can be seen as the Scottish version of modernism. It is sometimes referred to as the Scottish literary renaissance, although its influence went beyond literature into music, visual arts, and politics. The writers and artists of the Scottish Renaissance displayed a profound interest in both modern philosophy and technology, as well as incorporating folk influences, and a strong concern for the fate of Scotland's declining languages.
The Golden Treasury of Scottish Poetry was edited by Hugh MacDiarmid, and published in 1940. From the introduction:
William Soutar was a Scottish poet and diarist, who wrote in both English and Braid Scots. He is known best for his epigrams.
Margaret Caroline Tait was a Scottish film maker and poet.
Brownsbank is close to the small settlement of Candymill to the north of Biggar in Scotland.
Alan Norman Bold (1943–1998) was a Scottish poet, biographer, and journalist. He was born in Edinburgh.
Professor Duncan Munro Glen was a Scottish poet, literary editor and Emeritus Professor of Visual Communication at Nottingham Trent University. He became known to the literary world through his first full-length book, "Hugh MacDiarmid and the Scottish Renaissance". He published many collections of poetry, from "Kythings and other poems" (1969), "In Appearances" (1971) and "Realities Poems" (1980) to "Selected Poems 1965–1990" (1991), "Selected New Poems 1987–1996" (1998) and "Collected Poems 1965–2005" (2006). His "Autobiography of a Poet" was published by Ramsay Head Press in 1986. He edited Akros magazine through 51 numbers from August 1965 and did much to promote Scottish poets and artists. He was a friend and early champion of Hugh MacDiarmid and Ian Hamilton Finlay among others, and produced several volumes of poetry, some of which was translated into Italian.
Roderick Watson is a Scottish poet, born in Aberdeen. He is a professor emeritus in English Studies at the University of Stirling.
The Montrose Review was established on 11 January 1811, with the full title of The Montrose, Arbroath and Brechin Review, and Forfar and Kincardine Shires Advertiser. It was circulated widely throughout the counties of Angus and Kincardineshire.
Seán Rafferty was a Scottish poet, based in England from 1932 until his death. His poetry has been praised by Sorley MacLean, Ted Hughes, Michael Morpurgo and Hugh MacDiarmid and published in collections by the major British poetry presses Carcanet and Etruscan.
Ach' An Todhair is a small hamlet on the shore of Loch Linnhe in the Highland council area, Scotland. It is located along the A82 road directly south of Fort William. A bus serves the hamlet, connecting it to Fort William in the north and Corran and Inchree to the south. A number of graves of Clan Campbell are said to be located in this area of the lochside. It is mentioned in a poem in Hugh MacDiarmid's poetry collection The golden treasury of Scottish poetry which goes, "the sloucher of them was lying in Ach' an Todhair. Whoso climbed Tom na-h-aire? Many were the new paws there badly salted, the death-cloud on their eyes, lifeless after being scourged with sword-blades".
Lines Review was a Scottish poetry journal founded by the publisher Callum Macdonald in 1952. Its original editorial board included the Scottish poets Sydney Goodsir Smith, Hugh MacDiarmid, Norman MacCaig, Sorley MacLean and Denis Peploe. Latterly its individual editors included the poets Robin Fulton and Tessa Ransford. Tessa Ransford, the founder of the Scottish Poetry Library, published the final issue in 1998.
Callum Macdonald (1912–1999), was a Scottish printer and publisher born in Breaclete on the island of Great Bernera. He was educated in Stornoway and read History at the University of Edinburgh. After service in the Royal Air Force in World War II, he set up in business as a publisher in Edinburgh and founded the literary journal Lines Review in 1952. He died in Peebles.
The 1320 Club was a Scottish nationalist campaign group.
Robert Crombie Saunders was a poet, editor, journalist and teacher, and a significant figure in the Scottish Literary Renaissance of the 20th century. His poetry is in both English and Scots, and he identified with the 'Lallans' movement, which sought to revive Scots as a serious literary medium.
