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  • Donald Campbell
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Donald Campbell

1940 - 2019

Donald Campbell © Gordon Wright (image used under strict permission)
POEMS BIBLIOGRAPHY

Born in Caithness, Donald Campbell grew up in Edinburgh, attending Boroughmuir High School before undertaking a banking apprenticeship. After a few years in London, he returned to Edinburgh, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Campbell was a member of the Heretics Company in the 1970s, and formed the community theatre company the Old Town Theatre in the 1980s. He worked as a director in the 1980s and 90s. He was the author of more than a score of stage plays and also wrote more than 50 radio plays and two volumes of theatre history.

Five earlier collections of poetry are represented in Selected Poems: 1970-1990  (Galliard, 1990); Homage to Rob Donn was published by Fras in 2007, and Fugitives by Grace Note in 2015.  Campbell continued to work on further translations from the Gaelic of Rob Donn Mackay, and completed a version of Alexander MacDonald’s ‘Birlinn of Clanranald’.  His contributions to the cultural life of his city include a piece in celebration of the Edinburgh International Festival’s fiftieth anniversary, and Edinburgh: a Cultural and Literary History (Signal Books, 2003).  In 2014 thirty-one of his poems accompanied Ned Holt’s portraits of Edinburgh street characters in an exhibition at the Museum of Edinburgh; in 2017 he published poems to accompany Walter Geikie’s engravings of life and characters of the Old Town.

Campbell was appointed to the post of writer in residence in Lothian schools from 1974 to 1977;  writer in residence at the Lyceum Theatre from 1981 to 1983; awarded the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Napier University between 2000 and 2002, and given an Honorary Fellowship by the Association for Scottish Literary Studies in 2010.

Read more

Read the poems

  • Vietnam on My Mind
  • Tynecastle
  • Homage to Rob Donn
  • Winter Bairns
  • Betrayal in Morninside
  • Cougate Revisited

Selected Bibliography

Poems (Akros, 1971)
Rhymes ‘n Reasons (Reprographia, 1972)
Murals (Lothlorien, 1975)
Blether: a collection of poems (Akros, 1979)
Selected Poems: 1970-1990  (Galliard, 1990)
Homage to Rob Donn (Fras Publications, 2007)
Fugitives (Grace Note Publications, 2015)
Heard in the Cougait (Grace Note Publications, 2017)

Selected Biography and Criticism:

Donald Campbell (Conversations with Scottish Writers, No. 1) (Fras Publications, 2006)

Further Information

Donald can be seen teaching children about poetry in the film Giving Voice (1976), available on the NLS website.

From the Library Catalogue

Publications about Donald Campbell
Publications by Donald Campbell

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