"The city lives in these pages...and for every appreciation of its seven hills and architectural wonders, there is a leavening of healthy scepticism and peeks beneath the fur coat to check out the underwear," - Herald
Edinburgh is a city that speaks to the heart. Its dust, dirt, beauty, character, crowded closes and staggering views will always captivate and inspire. Poets like Robert Fergusson and later Robert Louis Stevenson loved walking through Edinburgh’s seamy underside, as well as its elegant New Town streets. Burns was flattered in New Town drawing rooms. Sir Walter Scott made the city a glamorous backdrop to history. Muriel Spark turned a mercilessly clear gaze on its foibles, and Hugh MacDiarmid called the city ‘a mad god’s dream’.
From the great Scottish renaissance poet William Dunbar, and Burns, Scott and Stevenson, to some of Scotland’s newest poetry by Robin Robertson and the city’s first Makar, Stewart Conn, this book presents a choice of the finest poems about Edinburgh through the centuries. This selection includes some rare poems by forgotten masters, and includes well-loved writers like Spark, Crichton Smith and Norman MacCaig.
Lizzie MacGregor is the Assistant Librarian of the Scottish Poetry Library, in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town. She has previously compiled Handfast, Handsel and Lament – published by Polygon.
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