Gray, Alasdair

(1934- )

   Born in Glasgow, and while still a teenager, he wrote a version of one of Aesop's fables and read it, with some other poems, on a BBC children's program. After graduating in 1957 from Glasgow Art School - where he specialized in murals - he worked as a part-time art teacher, then as scene painter in the Glasgow Pavilion and Glasgow Citizens theatres. He was writer in residence at the Glasgow University from 1977 to 1979 and artistrecorder at Glasgow's People's Palace. With fellow Glaswegian poet Tom Leonard (see entry) he was part of the Phillip Hobsbaum (see entry) "Group." A prolific writer, he has written novels, short stories, plays, poems, pamphlets and literary criticism, and he designs and illustrates his own books and illustrates those of other writers. His two poetry publications are Old Negatives (1989) and Sixteen Occasional Poems (2000). Some of his poems: "Agamemnon's Return," "Bosnian Heads," "First of March 1990," "South Africa April 1994," "Tales from the Polish Woods," "Waiting in Galway."

   Sources: Alasdair Gray Books-Word Power (www.wordpower.co.uk/platform/Alasdair-Gray-Books). Interview with Alasdair Gray (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dee.rimbaud/interviewsgray.html). Poems of Alasdair Gray (http://www.alasdairgray.co.uk/poetry/). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.