The Edwin Morgan Twenties: Take Heart

Introduced by Ali Smith, the title of this group of poems about people is taken from Morgan’s poem Pelagius, the theologian who is a kind of alter ego. Morgan has the ability to enter into so many lives: the blind hunchback of In the Snack-bar, Jesus’s judge in Pilate at Fortingall, the Polish juggler and acrobat Cinquevalli (another alter ego), even Rameses II in The Mummy. ‘Morgan, I said to myself, take note, / Take heart. In a time of confusion / You must make a stand.