Edwin Morgan 1920-2010

I felt unaccountably sad on Thursday, when I found out that Edwin Morgan had died. I felt like I'd lost a kind of literary uncle: someone whose breadth and depth of vision, whose experimental nature and willingness to explore all kinds of poetry, from the sonnet to the sound poem, excited me when I first read him and still excites me now. He made me believe anything was possible with language.

So here is my most immediate attempt at, not an elegy, but at representing what he means to me. It's a poem made from words found in the brochure of the Royal Exchange theatre, words strangely capitalised in the paragraphs advertising the plays. As I was mucking around with the words on the back of the bus home, it occurred to me that it would be the kind of thing that he would do, and suddenly it came to seem apt to dedicate it to him:

EXCHANGE SESTINA i.m. Edwin Morgan




STUNNING SAVAGE
PASSIONATE SWEEPING
DARK LIBERATING
GRIPPING URGENT
TENDER HILARIOUS
SHATTERING HEARTBREAKING

PASSIONATE SAVAGE
DARK SWEEPING
GRIPPING LIBERATING
TENDER URGENT
SHATTERING HILARIOUS
STUNNING HEARTBREAKING

DARK SAVAGE
GRIPPING SWEEPING
TENDER LIBERATING
SHATTERING URGENT
STUNNING HILARIOUS
PASSIONATE HEARTBREAKING

GRIPPING SAVAGE
TENDER SWEEPING
SHATTERING LIBERATING
STUNNING URGENT
PASSIONATE HILARIOUS
DARK HEARTBREAKING

TENDER SAVAGE
SHATTERING SWEEPING
STUNNING LIBERATING
PASSIONATE URGENT
DARK HILARIOUS
GRIPPING HEARTBREAKING

SHATTERING SAVAGE
STUNNING SWEEPING
PASSIONATE LIBERATING
DARK URGENT
GRIPPING HILARIOUS
TENDER HEARTBREAKING

SAVAGE SWEEPING
LIBERATING URGENT
HILARIOUS HEARTBREAKING

I hope it's the kind of thing that Edwin Morgan, bricolouer, poet and experimenter, would approve of.