SCOTS BOOKS
New Poems Chiefl y in the Scottish Dialect The Bard - Robert Burns, a Biography
Edited by Robert Crawford By Robert Crawford
T
welve leading Scottish poets were asked to
supply a selection of new work appropriate
to Robert Burns’ title Poems, Chiefl y in the T
o his legions of international admirers Robert
Burns was a genius, a hero and a warm-
hearted friend; yet to the mother of one of
Scottish Dialect. Their responses – ‘a sly wink to the his lovers he was a wastrel; to a fellow poet he was
master’ – are full of surprises. From John Burnside, ‘sprung from raking of dung’, and to his political
Robert Crawford, Douglas Dunn, Alasdair Gray, WN enemies a ‘traitor’. Drawing on a surprising variety
Herbert, Kathleen Jamie, Jackie Kay, David Kinloch,, of untapped sources – from rediscovered poetry
Tom Leonard, Liz Lochhead, Don Paterson and by Burns to manuscript journals, correspondence,
Robin Robertson come daft, uproarious and tender interviews and oratory by his contemporaries – this
lyrical works. new biography presents the remarkable life, love
Everything from Ayrshire mothers to the Scots and struggles of the great poet. Inspired by the
tongue and the colorectal adventures of Maw Broon American and French Revolutions and moulded by
are celebrated through the canny and uncanny the Scottish Enlightenment, Burns was in several
possibilities of the Scots and English tongues. senses the fi rst of the great Romantics. With a
poet’s insight and a shrewd sense of human drama,
Published by Polygon, Edinburgh Robert Crawford outlines how Burns combined a
www.birlinn.co.uk childhood steeped in the peasant song-culture of
ISBN 978 1 84697 095 5 rural Scotland with a consummate linguistic artistry
to become, not only the world’s most popular love
poet, but also the controversial master poet of
modern democracy.
The Bard is the story of an extraordinary man
fi ghting to maintain a sense of integrity in the face
of overwhelming pressures.
Published by Jonathan Cape, London
www.rbooks.co.uk ISBN 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
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