Wikipedia / Stewart Conn
Wikipedia / Stewart Conn
Stewart Conn (born 1936) is a Scottish poet and playwright, born in Hillhead, Glasgow. His father was a minister at Kelvinside Church but the family moved to Kilmarnock, Ayrshire in 1941 when he was five. During the 1960s and 1970s, he worked for the BBC at their offices off Queen Margaret Drive and moved to Edinburgh in 1977, where until 1992 he was based as BBC Scotland's head of radio drama. He was Edinburgh's first makar or poet laureate in 2002–05.
Works
As well as several collections of poetry, his books include a collection of essays and memoir poems, Distances (2001), from Scottish Cultural Press. Most recently he edited 100 Favourite Scottish Poems (SPL/Luath Press, 2006), a TLS Christmas choice, and 100 Favorite Scottish Love Poems (Luath Press, 2008). He has won three Scottish Arts Council book awards, travel awards from the Society of Authors and the English-Speaking Union, and the Institute of Contemporary Scotland's first Iain Crichton Smith award for services to literature. His collection An Ear to the Ground was a Poetry Book Society Choice, and Stolen Light was shortlisted for Saltire Scottish book of the year. A special issue of Chapman magazine was devoted to the work of Stewart Conn, April 1, 2007. The Breakfast Room won the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards Poetry Book of the Year Prize in 2010.
Conn's play Hugh Miller was staged at the Netherbow Theatre on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 1988, with Alec Heggie in the title role.
Poetry includes
Each year links to its corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
1967: Thunder in the Air Akros Publications
1967: The Chinese Tower: A Poem Sequence M. Macdonald
1968: Stoats in the Sunglight Hutchinson & Co.
1972: An Ear to the Ground Hutchinson & Co.
1987: In the Kibble Palace Bloodaxe Books
1992: The Luncheon of the Boating Party Bloodaxe Books
1999: Stolen Light: Selected Poems Bloodaxe Books
2001: Distances: A Personal Evocation of People and Places Scottish Cultural Press
2005: Ghosts at Cockcrow Bloodaxe Books
2007 The Loving Cup Mariscat
2010: The Breakfast Room Bloodaxe Books
2012 Estuary Mariscat
2014: The Touch of Time: New and Selected Poems Bloodaxe Books
2016: Against the Light Mariscat
2019: Aspects of Edinburgh Scotland Street Press
Plays include
The Burning (1971)
Clay Bull
Greenvoe
Hugh Miller (1988)
Mission Boy
The Aquarium
The King
Thistlewood
Under the Ice
Play Donkey
Herman
I Didn't Always Live Here
References
Further reading
Conn, Stewart (2001), Distances: A Personal Evocation of People and Places, Scottish Cultural Press,
Lockerbie, Catherine, "Making Waves: Radio in Scotland", in Parker, Geoff (ed.), Cencrastus No. 20, Spring 1985, pp. 8 - 11,
External links
profile at British Council website
Interview at www.thedarkhorsemagazine.com
Biography on Bloodaxe Books website
biography at Scottish Poetry Library