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This was Edwin Morgan's first book of poems. Cathkin Braes is a park in south-east Glasgow, and is the highest point in the city with panoramic views across it.

In the title poem, the poet wanders there at evening "with my love" and encounters various dancing figures from history and the present: Jenny Geddes, McGonagall, John Knox, Lauren Bacall, Mary Queen of Scots, "Saint Mungo Park", Salome and Wordsworth. 'Ingram Lake, or, Five Acts on the House' presents parodies of contemporary dramatists, by way of their play-making as part of a (stag) party game. 'A Song of the Petrel' is a translation from Maxim Gorky.

Morgan's Collected Poems (Carcanet, 1990) begins with Dies Irae (1952), a collection which, the 'Preface' explains,

"was to have been published by Lotus Press in their Acadine Poets series, but when the series foundered through lack of finance, never appeared; it was intended as a complementary volume to A Vision of Cathkin Braes – rather like the tragic and comic masks of drama."

The Vision of Cathkin Braes And Other Poems

1950s

This was Edwin Morgan's first book of poems. Cathkin Braes is a park in south-east Glasgow and is the highest point in the city, with panoramic views across it.

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