No writer is more charismatic than Robert Burns and no biographer has captured his energy, brilliance and radicalism as well as Robert Crawford does in The Bard. To his international admirers Burns was a genius, a hero, a warm-hearted friend; yet to the mother of one of his lovers he was a wastrel, to a fellow poet he was 'sprung...from raking of dung', and to his political enemies a 'traitor'. Drawing on a surprising variety of untapped sources - from rediscovered poetry by Burns...

Young Eliot: From St. Louis to "The Waste Land" was hailed as "exceptional" and "assiduous" ( The New York Times). Robert Crawford's meticulous, incisive scholarship continues in Eliot After "The Waste Land", an invaluable record of the revolutionary modernist, visionary poet, and troubled man.After being kept from the public for more than fifty years, the letters between T. S. Eliot and his longtime love and muse Emily Hale were unsealed ...

"A rich exploration of Eliot's life, his grinding labors and excoriating intelligence." —Edna O'Brien, The New York Times Book ReviewThe award-winning biographer Robert Crawford presents us with the first volume of a comprehensive account of the poetic genius of T.S. Eliot. Young Eliot traces the life of the twentieth century's most important poet from his childhood in St. Louis to the publication of his revolutionary poem "The Waste Land." Crawfor...

Holding in balance the ecological and the technological, ancient and modern, Full Volume sings languages and cultures, people and habitats burgeoning on the brink of extinction. From revved-up battle-cry to nervous whisper, these lyrical poems praise intricate abundance.Assured in its rhymes and cadences, Full Volume is often attentive to poetry in other tongues, not least Gaelic. As their tones and forms shift from the spiritual to the wry, from haiku to bros...

Textual Non Sense is mischievous, minimalist, and revolutionary: a short fuse intended to spark a fundamental re-thinking of how we engage with notions of canon. Classic texts are mangled, quotes are mis-attributed, and great authors are misidentified as Robert Crawford brings literature and chaos theory together in a romance made on Tinder. William Shakespeare of the School of Literature and Bookmaking introduces a survey of writers' struggles. John Buchan provides his gu...

Edinburgh and Glasgow enjoy a famously scratchy relationship. Resembling other intercity rivalries throughout the world, from Madrid and Barcelona, to Moscow and St. Petersburg, to Beijing and Shanghai, Scotland’s sparring metropolises just happen to be much smaller and closer together—like twin stars orbiting a common axis. Yet their size belies their world-historical importance as cultural and commercial capitals of the British Empire, and the mere forty miles between their city centers ...

We all know what religion is - or do we? Confronted with religious pluralism and cultural diversity, it manifests itself in many forms. What is Religion? serves not only as an introduction to the different belief systems flourishing throughout the modern world, but asks us to consider how the very boundaries of faith might be drawn now and in the future. How might religion interact with political ends, or permeate culture, society and everyday life? Is the post-secular world in th...

Life cycle assessment enables the identification of a broad range of potential environmental impacts occurring across the entire life of a product, from its design through to its eventual disposal or reuse. The need for life cycle assessment to inform environmental design within the built environment is critical, due to the complex range of materials and processes required to construct and manage our buildings and infrastructure systems.After outlining the framework for life cycle ...

Writings about the Scottish island from throughout history and today, from the likes of novelists, poets, playwrights, saints, queens, and more.This anthology is comprised of creative prose, nonfiction, and poetry that ranges from St. Columba to the present day, all linked by the isle of Iona. Featuring specially commissioned work by Meaghan Delahunt, Jennie Erdal, Sara Lodge, Victoria Mackenzie, Candia McWilliam, Ruth Thomas, and Alice Thompson, this wonderful coll...

The story of haiku’s global journey, from Japan to every culture and languageA century and a half ago, almost no one outside of Japan had heard of the haiku. Even in Tokyo some people regarded these tiny poems with disdain. Today they are the world’s most widely known poetic form, cherished and reviled in equal measure. At their best, haiku are highly attentive to the moment and describe the world with pinpoint accuracy; at their worst, they can be trite and cloyin...

Taken from his first six books, these poems confirm Robert Crawford as a poet of exhilarating energy wedded to a constantly refreshing delight in nuanced language. Richly nourished by his background, Crawford's work is both lyrical and wry. Its intelligent humour and attunement to our technological present are impressively fused with a deepening note of spirituality. Unpredictable yet recognisable, these are poems of beguiling vitality.While readers have praised Crawford's lovingly...

One of Scotland’s most celebrated poets, Robert Crawford has long been a passionate and articulate ambassador for his country and its culture, its people and its landscape. The Scottish Ambassador fuses individual and communal voices in poems that resonate far beyond their points of origin. Engaging with Zoroastrian, Chinese and Greek as well as with Scottish antecedents, Crawford’s poems have an arresting range and a lyrical energy. He negotiates with intensity and wit between a ...