Edwin Morgan, Scotland's national poet, or makar, was among the many readers who followed The Herald's quest to find the country's favourite painting. Himself an art lover and collector, Dr Morgan responded to the shortlist of canvases (Salvador Dali's Christ of St John of the Cross was the clear winner) with a dazzling sequence of 10 poems, one to each painting. Their freshness, immediacy and wit show the poet in top form. "I seem to be in prolific mood, " he remarks with typical modesty.
If forced to declare a personal favourite among the 10 paintings he would opt for the Joan Eardley, he says.
The ten poems - soon to be republished in book form under the title 'Under the Sun".
Presented here, the author himself reading some of the ten poems he scribed...
Edwin Morgan
