Name/TitleMemo For Spring
MakerLochhead, Liz
Maker RoleAuthor
About this objectPaperback publication titled 'MEMO FOR SPRING' by Liz Lochhead - her first poetry collection, published with the support of the Scottish Arts Council.
Medium and MaterialsOrganic, paper
MeasurementsH: 215 x W: 140 mm
Date Made1972
Period1970s
Place MadeScotland, Edinburgh
Place NotesReprographia, 23 Livingstone Place, Edinburgh EH9 1PD
PublisherReprographia
Publication Date1972
Publication PlaceScotland, Edinburgh
Subject and Association Descriptionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Lochhead:
Liz Lochhead Hon FRSE (born 26 December 1947) is a Scottish poet, playwright, translator and broadcaster. Between 2011 and 2016 she was the Makar, or National Poet of Scotland, and served as Poet Laureate for Glasgow between 2005 and 2011.
Elizabeth Anne Lochhead was born in Craigneuk, a "little ex-mining village just outside Motherwell", Lanarkshire. Her mother and father had both served in the army during the Second World War, and later, her father was a local government clerk. In 1952, the family moved into a new council house in the mining village of Newarthill, where her sister was born in 1957. Though she was encouraged by her teachers to study English, Lochhead was determined to go to Glasgow School of Art where she studied between 1965 and 1970. After graduation Lochhead taught art at high schools in Glasgow and Bristol, a career at which she says she was "terrible".
Having written poetry as a child and whilst studying at Art School, Lochhead won a BBC Scotland Poetry Competition in 1971, and Gordon Wright published her first collection of Poetry, Memo For Spring in 1972 under his Reprographia imprint. It is often claimed that at this time Lochhead was part of a Philip Hobsbaum writers' group, a crucible of creative activity – with other members including Alasdair Gray, James Kelman, Tom Leonard, Aonghas MacNeacail and Jeff Torrington, Liz Lochhead has repeatedly claimed this to be an invention. She has however recalled the support and inspiration she drew from the Scottish poetry scene of the early 1970s and meetings with the elder generation - Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan, Robert Garioch – and with contemporaries such as Leonard, Kelman and Gray. Lochhead went on to produce revue shows with Leonard and Gray, including Tickly Mince, and The Pie of Damocles. Other the following years Lochhead published further collections Islands (1978) and The Grimm Sisters (1979) and moved first to Toronto as part of the first Scottish/Canadian writers exchange and later made her home in New York. In 1986 she returned permanently to Glasgow [continues].
Subject and Association Keywordswomen's writing & literature
Subject and Association Keywordspoetry & verse
Named CollectionGlasgow Women's Library
Object TypeBook
ISBN/ISSN903065 05 3
Object numberGWL-2024-32-1
Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved