With more than forty volumes of poetry and prose to his name, in English and Gaelic, Iain Crichton Smith is increasingly acknowledged as the elder statesman of modern Scottish letters and Scotland's most distinguished living poet. In 1978 he was awarded the Queen's Jubilee Medal and in 1980 the Order of the British Empire. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and received honorary doctorates from Dundee University in 1983 and Glasgow University in 1984. He has received many awards: Scottish Arts Council Awards (1966, 1968, 1974, and 1977); the SAC Prize (1978); a BBC award for television drama, a Book Council award, and a P.E.N. award (all in 1970); a Silver Pen Award (1971); and two Poetry Book Society recommendations (1972 and 1975). Yet in some ways this recognition is more formal than felt. The Scottish literary establishment has never really taken him to its heart, and his work has sometimes received only grudging praise...