Born in Edinburgh in 1959, Meg Bateman studied Celtic at Aberdeen University, and went on to write a PhD thesis on medieval Gaelic religious poetry. She has taught Gaelic in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and now lectures at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. She began writing poetry in Gaelic in her mid-twenties, and chose the language ‘mostly because it was through my reading of Gaelic song-poetry that I had developed a notion of the sort of poetry I want to create myself. I did not want to produce confessional, or idiosyncratic, or even original poetry; rather I wanted it to have a sort of leanness, an inevitability about it, both formally and emotionally.’

Her publications include Aotromachd agus dàin eile/ Lightness and other poems (Polygon, 1997) and Etruscan Reader IX (Etruscan Books, 2000); her poems are included in Dream State: the new Scottish poets (ed. Donny O’Rourke, 2nd edition, Polygon, 2003), Modern Scottish Women Poets (eds Dorothy McMillan and Michel Byrne, Canongate, 2003) and Soirbheas/Fair Wind (Polygon, 2007). With James McGonigal and Robert Crawford, Meg Bateman edited Scottish Religious Poetry (St Andrews, 2001).

TOP 

Related links

› The Gaelic Poetry of Meg Bateman by Alexander Shevlinn

› Read Do Raibeart Mac Fhearghais by Meg Bateman

› Biography of Meg Bateman by Robert Davidson

TOP