And time is torn from its rings, and the door of life
Flies open on unimaginable things

Edwin Morgan wrote this back in 1952, in ‘Stanzas from the Jeopardy’, and like many of his lines it feels uncannily apt.

He was determined to reach 90, which he did, despite a cancer diagnosis that suggested his years would fall short of that target. The Edwin Morgan Trust was determined that his 100th birthday should be celebrated appropriately, not just on 27 April but over the whole year. There has been so much planning, and so many willing partners, whose activities have been stymied by the pandemic.

So the Trust has had to swerve online; just as we were preparing to sit back and hand over responsibility, we find ourselves being the ‘ion engine’ after all. The University of Glasgow’s (‘postponed’) international Morgan conference was to be the starting point, with a display in the Library – where the Special Collections is the home of a rich Morgan archive – and a small exhibition at the Hunterian Art Gallery. The Hunterian is showing online a selection of the art E.M. donated to the University, so do go and see ‘An Eardley on my wall’.

The Trust opened its video channel, ‘Hold Hands Among the Atoms’, on the 27th with ‘Open the Doors’, a video that includes readings, tributes and memories from Jackie Kay, Liz Lochhead, Alan Cumming, Damian Barr and Imtiaz Dharker among others. The page on the Trust’s website will ...