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Poets'
A-Z »Iain Crichton
Smith
Born Glasgow, 1928; died Taynuilt, 1998.
Brought up on the island of Lewis, Crichton Smith spent most
of his working life as a schoolteacher, in Clydebank then
Oban.
He wrote prose and poetry in both Gaelic and English. The
long poem 'Am Faigh a' Ghàidhlig Bàs?'/ 'Shall
Gaelic Die?' meditates on the fate of that language and culture.
Often a deeply troubled man, and a self-deprecating writer,
he could move an audience to tears of laughter with his 'Murdo'
stories.
Consider the Lilies, about the Highland Clearances,
is a classic novel, but he considered himself more naturally
a poet. Crichton Smith wrote poems of lyrical candour and
great human understanding, as well as poems that speculated
on the course and meaning of human existence.
He was a much-loved man and poet, and some of his poems in
English and in Gaelic have become touchstones for Scottish
literature.
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