Edwin Morgan is a Scottish poet who has achieved original and interesting results by employing experimental methods which dislocate conventional poetic vocabulary and syntax…. At a technical level, however, Morgan is also rooted firmly in traditional modes of writing. His poetry ranges, therefore, from original work in English and Scots (including translation from several European languages) to linguistic games of chance, many of which are certainly more anarchically neo-modernist than anything by [Ian Hamilton] Finlay. (p. 118)

As the title indicates, the poems of [From Glasgow to Saturn] include both local, sometimes most moving, social commentary and space-age science-fiction narratives and episodes. There are traditional English and Scots poems, including an effective sequence of ten 'Glasgow sonnets', and 'Stobhill', a set of five strongly ironic but ultimately compassionate monologues revealing a dramatic gift which Morgan has developed only rarely. His exploration of effects which can be achieved through gradual...