The library will be closing at 1pm on Wednesday the 16th of September for an event. Dismiss

Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • Poetry
    • Poets
    • Poems
    • Burns Night
    • Scotland’s Makar
    • Podcasts
    • Best Scottish Poems
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • Nat 5 and Higher poems
    • Dyslexia-friendly lesson plans
    • Poems in Scots for schools
    • Rannan Chloinne / Children’s Verses
    • Nua-Nòs Gaelic Resources
    • Poems in English for schools
    • Scots poems for bairns
    • Posters
  • Events
    • What’s On
    • Organising a cultural event at the SPL
    • Meeting rooms and venue hire
  • Shop
    • SPL Shop
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Our projects
    • FAQs
    • Company papers
    • Jobs & Volunteering
    • Find us
    • Contact us
    • Making a complaint
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poetry
  • >
  • Poets
  • >
  • Stewart Conn
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

Stewart Conn

b.1936

White haired man wearing glasses and a grey denim shirt, sitting in front of bookshelves.
Photo by Richard Macfarlane
POEMS LISTEN BIBLIOGRAPHY CRITICISM

Born in Glasgow and brought up in Ayrshire, the setting for much of his early work, Stewart Conn has since 1977 lived in Edinburgh and was from 2002 to 2005 the city’s inaugural makar. Publications include Stoats in the Sunlight (Scottish Arts Council prize), An Ear to the Ground (Poetry Book Society Choice) and Under the Ice (SAC book award) (all Hutchinson); In the Kibble Palace, The Luncheon of the Boating Party, Stolen Light, Ghosts at Cockcrow, The Breakfast Room (SMIT 2014 Scottish Poetry Book of the Year) and a selected volume The Touch of Time (Bloodaxe Books); a memoir Distances (Scottish Cultural Press), Aspects of Edinburgh with drawings by John Knight (Scotland Street Press) and most recently a fourth Mariscat pamphlet Underwood; plus as editor 100 Favourite Scottish Poems and 100 Favourite Scottish Love Poems (Luath Press) and Other Worlds: An Anthology of Scottish Island Poems (Polygon).

In his years as head of BBC Scotland’s radio drama department he worked with, encouraged and admired a wide range of Scottish writers. Of his own plays ‘Herman’ and ‘Hugh Miller’ won Fringe First Awards; while those published include ‘I Didn’t Always Live Here’, ‘The King’,’The Burning’, ‘The Aquarium’, ‘Play Donkey’ and ‘Thistlewood’. He is a fellow of the RSAMD, and in 2006 received the Institute of Contemporary Scotland’s first Iain Crichton Smith award for services to literature. He reads a selection of his poems you can listen to on the Poetry Archive website. His own web address is www.stewartconn.com.

Read the poems

  • A Gift of Doves
  • The Well-Spring
  • On the Slope
  • Tide
  • Estuary
  • To The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (1505-2005)
  • Lothian Burn
  • Visitation
  • Carpe Diem

Listen


Selected Bibliography

Thunder in the Air (Preston: Akros Publications, 1967)
The Chinese Tower (Edinburgh: Macdonald, 1967)
Stoats in the Sunlight (London: Hutchinson, 1968)
An Ear to the Ground (London: Hutchinson, 1972)
Under the Ice (London: Hutchinson, 1978)
In the Kibble Palace: new & selected poems (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1987)
The Luncheon of the Boating Party (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1992)
In the Blood (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1995)
At the Aviary (Cape Town: Snailpress, 1995)
Stolen Light: selected poems (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1999)
Distances: a personal evocation of people and places (Dalkeith: Scottish Cultural Press, 2001)
Ghosts at Cockcrow (Tarset: Bloodaxe Books, 2005)
The Loving-Cup (Edinburgh: Mariscat Press, 2007)
The Breakfast Room (Tarset: Bloodaxe Books, 2010)
Estuary: poems (Mariscat, 2012)
The Touch of Time: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe, 2014)
Against the Light (Edinburgh: Mariscat, 2016)
Aspects of Edinburgh, with drawings by John Knight (Edinburgh: Scotland Street Press, 2019)
Underwood (Mariscat, 2022)

in translation
Antologia Nowej Poezji Brytyjskiej tr. Piotr Sommer (Czytelnik, Warszawa, 1983)
Six Poètes Écossais tr. Serge Baudot (Éditions Télo-Martius, Toulon, 1991)
L’ànima del teixidor with Anna Crowe tr. various (Edicions Proa, Barcelona, 2000)

as editor
The Hand That Sees: poems for the quincentenary of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh/Scottish Poetry Library, 2005)
100 Favourite Scottish Poems (Edinburgh: SPL/Luath Press, 2006)
100 Favourite Scottish Love Poems (Edinburgh: Luath Press, 2008)
Other Worlds: Scottish Island Poems (Edinburgh: Polygon, forthcoming 2022)

criticism
‘Dulcet-tongued and full of wisdom: letters from George’, The Dark Horse 44- The George Mackay Brown centenary issue (Autumn/Winter 2021)

Selected Biography & Criticism

Interview with Allen Wright, Scotsman 30 October 1971

George Bruce, ‘“Bound by Necessity”: the poetry of Stewart Conn’, Akros 14:40 (April 1979)

Iain Crichton Smith, ‘Towards the Human: the poetry of Stewart Conn’ in Towards the Human: essays (Edinburgh: Macdonald, 1986)

George Bruce, ‘Stewart Conn’ in Contemporary Poets 6th edn (New York: St James Press, 1996)

Stewart Conn, ‘A sense of belonging’ in Paul Henderson Scott (ed.), Spirits of the Age: Scottish self portraits (Edinburgh: The Saltire Society, 2005)

‘Stewart Conn: an interview and appreciations’ in The Dark Horse 19 (Winter 2006/2007)

In Praise of the Lyric Muse: Stewart Conn at 70 [special issue] Chapman 109 (2007)

‘Living Legends: Alan Riach on Stewart Conn and Aonghas MacNeacail’, Culture section of The National (Oct 8, 2018)

Further Information

Manuscripts and Papers

National Library of Scotland

Stewart Conn’s website

Conn presents a selection of his poems to listen to on The Poetry Archive

 

From the Library Catalogue

Publications about Stewart Conn
Publications by Stewart Conn

Share this
Facebook
Twitter
Email

Learn more

Stewart Conn

December 2019
Stewart Conn discusses how Edinburgh inspired his latest collection and his collaboration with illustrator John Knight.
Listen to the Podcast

100 Favourite Scottish Poems Edited by Stewart Conn

£7.99
Poems to make you laugh. Poems to make you cry. Poems to make you think. Poems to savour. Poems to read out loud. To read again, and again. Scottish poems. Old favourites. New favourites. 100 of the best. Scotland...
Find out more

Online Shop

Browse our range of poetry books, cards and gifts in our online shop. Free UK shipping over £20.
Shop now
  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy (UK)
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2026.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
Scottish Poetry Library
Manage Consent

To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.

We use privacy-focused tracking technologies to help us understand and improve the experience of our visitors. We track activity, not users, but you can still object to this tracking via our cookie policy.

Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
  • Manage options
  • Manage services
  • Manage {vendor_count} vendors
  • Read more about these purposes
View preferences
  • {title}
  • {title}
  • {title}