"Open the Doors and Begin": Edwin Morgan and the Scottish Parliament

I just spent a few days in Edinburgh, one of my favourite cities in the whole wide world, with my parents. It pretty much drips with poetry, overt and implied. A future blog post will probably contain some more photos and details, but for tonight, here's Edwin Morgan, considered one of the great poets of modern Scotland.

This quotation in stone is one of many which appear on the controversial Scottish Parliament building. Edwin Morgan, who was appointed the Scots Makar (national poet or bard) in 2004, also wrote a wild, Whitmanesque poem for the opening of the new Parliament building in the same year, and here it is:


FOR THE OPENING OF THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT, 9 OCTOBER 2004 (Edwin Morgan)