Poem of the month - August 2007

Betrayal in Morninside Embro my ain, ye are aye meant tae be a city o middle-class douceness                          blue-nosed mediocrity                          bourgeois obtuseness but         (listen tae what I’m tellin ye!)                          The ither nicht in the Morninside chippie I was confrontit by nae fewer than ten o the reuchest and the teuchest o yer haurdest-haurd haurd men - and (O Gode!) hou I wished I was in Glasgow! Donald Campbell Poem supplied courtesy of the Scottish Poetry Library

About Donald Campbell Born in Caithness in 1940, Donald Campbell grew up in Edinburgh where he still lives. Although he spent five uncomfortable years at Boroughmuir High School and served an apprenticeship as a bank official, he is largely self-educated, proud to call himself an autodidact.  Since 1974, he has been active as playwright, theatre historian, stage director, scriptwriter and poet.  Campbell has published a substantial body of poetry, six full collections being represented in his Selected Poems: 1970-1990 (Galliard, 1990). His most recent collection is Homage to Rob Donn (Fras Publications, 2007), Scots versions of the poetry of the great Gaelic poet of that name. Donald Campbell's stage drama has won three Scotsman Fringe First awards for productions during the Edinburgh International Festival, and his radio work has been recognized by international awards on three continents: A Clydebuilt Man (New York, 1983), The Miller's Reel (Sydney, 1987) and The Year of The Bonnie Prince (Monte Carlo, 1996). Formerly Writer-in-Residence to Lothian Schools (1974-77), Resident Playwright at the Royal Lyceum Theatre (1981-83), Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Dundee (1987-89) and William Soutar Fellow in Perth (1991-93), he was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Napier University in 2000/01 and Associate Fellow in 2001/02.