Stewart Conn

Stewart Conn (born 1936) is a Scottish poet and playwright, born in Hillhead, Glasgow. His father was a minister at Kelvinside Church but the family moved to Kilmarnock, Ayrshire in 1941 when he was five. During the 1960s and 1970s, he worked for the BBC at their offices off Queen Margaret Drive He was Edinburgh's first makar or poet laureate in 2002–05.

Works As well as several collections of poetry, his books include a collection of essays and memoir poems, Distances (2001), from Scottish Cultural Press. Most recently he edited 100 Favourite Scottish Poems (SPL/Luath Press, 2006), a TLS Christmas choice, and 100 Favorite Scottish Love Poems (Luath Press, 2008). He has won three Scottish Arts Council book awards, travel awards from the Society of Authors and the English-Speaking Union, and the Institute of Contemporary Scotland's first Iain Crichton Smith award for services to literature. His collection An Ear to the Ground was a Poetry Book Society Choice, and Stolen Light was shortlisted for Saltire Scottish book of the year. A special issue of Chapman magazine was devoted to the work of Stewart Conn, April 1, 2007. The Breakfast Room won the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards Poetry Book of the Year Prize in 2010.

Conn's play Hugh Miller was staged at the Netherbow Theatre on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 1988, with Alec Heggie in the title role.

Poetry includes Each year links to its corresponding "[year] in poetry" article: 1967: Thunder in the Air Akros Publications 1967: The Chinese Tower: A Poem Sequence M. Macdonald 1968: Stoats in the Sunglight Hutchinson & Co. 1972: An Ear to the Ground Hutchinson & Co. 1987: In the Kibble Palace Bloodaxe Books 1992: The Luncheon of the Boating Party Bloodaxe Books 1999: Stolen Light: Selected Poems Bloodaxe Books 2001: Distances: A Personal Evocation of People and Places Scottish Cultural Press 2005: Ghosts at Cockcrow Bloodaxe Books 2007 The Loving Cup Mariscat 2010: The Breakfast Room Bloodaxe Books 2012 Estuary Mariscat 2014: The Touch of Time: New and Selected Poems Bloodaxe Books 2016: Against the Light Mariscat 2019: Aspects of Edinburgh Scotland Street Press

Plays include The Burning (1971) Clay Bull Greenvoe Hugh Miller (1988) Mission Boy The Aquarium The King Thistlewood Under the Ice Play Donkey Herman I Didn't Always Live Here