Although Sydney Goodsir Smith’s Collected Poems: 1941–1975 (1975) is generally regarded as a flawed text with a number of typographic errors, the decision has been made to follow this book where possible in this edited collection. The reason for this is that the Collected Poems is the most readily available and complete of Smith’s publications and it contains an extensive glossary of English translations of Scots words, and has yet to be bettered. This present edited collection only contains a selective glossary of the more difficult Scots terms and readers who have any difficulty with Smith’s Scots beyond this are advised to use the glossary in Collected Poems. Certain poems, such as uncollected translations and those in Smith’s first collection Skail Wind are not included in Collected Poems.
The editor wishes to thank not only those who kindly offered chapters for this book, but also the staff at Brill, particularly Masja Horn, for their interest. The editor also wishes to thank the following people and institutions for their time, knowledge and support: Heather Scott; Tessa Ransford (d.2015); Hugh Mackay; Donald Hall (d.2018); Stefanie Van de Peer; Deirdre Guthrie; Deirdre Grieve; John Manson; Edward Nairn (d. 2013); Roddy Simpson; Robin Fulton; Roderick Watson; James Aitchison; the staff of the Scottish Poetry Library; the staff of Special Collections / National Library of Scotland; the staff of Special Collections / Edinburgh University Library; the staff of Special Collections / University of Glasgow Library and the staff of the Mitchell Library, Glasgow. The editor would also like to particularly thank the artist Alexander Moffat for allowing images of his artworks to be reproduced in this book.
Patrick Crotty’s essay ‘Sydney Goodsir Smith: A Centenary Appreciation’ is a changed and extended version of an article first published as ‘Doon Canongate: A centenary appreciation of a Scots makar’ in the Times Literary Supplement (November 13, 2015, pp. 14–15).
