Silver: An Aberdeen Anthology

by Alan Spence (Editor), Hazel Hutchison (Editor), Edwin Morgan (Contributor)

This book of poems about Aberdeen includes work by Edwin Morgan, Iain Crichton Smith, Thomas Hardy, Lord Byron, Stuart Conn, Sheena Blackhall, and many other writers old and new. Aberdeen is known as the city of granite, the city of oil, the city of fish, and the city of high house-prices, but Aberdeen has many different faces—some of them charming, and some of them severe. This collection of poems explores the life and culture of the city as seen by poets through the centuries, from Norse and Medieval views of Aberdeen to previously unpublished poems by contemporary writers.

192 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2009

About the author

Alan Spence (born 1947) is a Scottish writer and is Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen, where he is also artistic director of the annual WORD Festival. He was born in Glasgow, and much of his work is set in the city.

Spence is an award-winning poet and playwright, novelist and short-story writer. His first work was the collection of short stories Its Colours They are Fine, first published in 1977. This was followed by two plays, Sailmaker in 1982 and Space Invaders in 1983. The novel The Magic Flute appeared in 1990 along with his first book of poetry, Glasgow Zen. In 1991, another of his plays, Changed Days, was published before a brief hiatus. He returned in 1996 with Stone Garden, another collection of short stories. In 2006, The Pure Land, a historical novel set in Japan, was published by Canongate Books, and is based on the life of Thomas Blake Glover who is immortalised in the story of Madame Butterfly.