Writers, literary figures and friends gathered yesterday in Glasgow to honour the launch of the first major book from Edwin Morgan, the 86-year-old poet, since he was made Scotland's official laureate.

Mr Morgan, long regarded as Scotland's greatest living poet, celebrated the release of A Book of Lives, a compilation of recent work, published and unpublished, at the care home in which he has lived for three years.

The poet, who is battling cancer, said he was glad to see the publication of his work, such as the verses he wrote specifically for the opening of the Scottish Parliament, a poem about his illness in the form of a dialogue between a healthy cell and a cancer cell, and other works which tackle the themes of love, loss, the "war on terror" and his past life.

Morgan, who was Glasgow's poet laureate before he was anointed as the nation's "Makar", said that, although he now spends much of his time in a wheelchair, he still enjoys a degree of independence and recently visited the Scottish Parliament, the Glasgow Science Centre and the Museum of Flight.

"I am quite happy here," he said of the care home. "No-one, of course, wants to be in one of these places but I like it here.

"I am very pleased to see the book and I think Carcanet the publishers have done a good job with it. And I wouldn't say it was my last one, maybe there's a little more writing to go."

Michael Schmidt, the editorial director of Carcanet, said: "This book proves that like a lot of great poets, such as Yeats, that great work comes in the later part of life, and he has not gone off', he has gone on and on."

Professor Alan Riach, head of the department of Scottish literature at Glasgow University, said: "This is a hugely important book for Edwin, his reputation and also for Scotland, his first major book since becoming Makar.

"It is also a new work in a way, in that he writes about his personal life so openly.