Edwin Morgan, Norman MacCaig and Iain Crichton Smith

There is a temptation to read twentieth century Scottish poetry as comprising twin peaks of aesthetic achievement, both animated by questions of Scottish identity and issues of cultural/ political renewal. The work of Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan and Iain Crichton Smith sits rather awkwardly within a critical paradigm that anchors a Scottish poetic to a narrative of national renewal in either the cultural or political sphere. MacCaig, Morgan and Crichton Smith were all prolific writers, with each publishing consistently for over half a century. For Iain Crichton Smith the disjuncture is equally relevant. Raised on the Gaelic speaking island of Lewis, Crichton Smith's work is more concerned with the precarious fate of his own highland culture than the political inequities of the Westminster system. Crichton Smith had a bilingual upbringing with Gaelic the language of the family and home, and English the language of education and school.