The entire poetry world is saddened to hear of Edwin Morgan’s death. I almost typed “the entire Scottish poetry world”,  but Eddie Morgan was a true Scottish internationalist and his reach was global. Even that doesn’t sum him up. Morgan himself comes closest in the title of his collection From Glasgow to Saturn: from the intensely local to the reaches of outer space. But always human, always humane; always inventive and often great fun. His wonderful dialogue-cum-sound poem “The First Men on Mercury” is a case in point. The full text is here, but I’ll leave you with the closing lines:

– Stretterworra gawl, gawl…

– Of course, but nothing is ever the same,
now is it? You’ll remember Mercury.

Nothing will ever be the same. We remember Eddie. We remember, Eddie.

*The title of this post is lifted from this comment on the Scottish Poetry Library blog.