University to honour Robert Burns’ favourite poet

The University of St Andrews is to honour Robert Burns’ favourite Scottish poet by holding a year- long celebration of his life.

The St Andrews Scottish Studies Institute (SASSI) has commissioned ten poems from ten contemporary poets to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Robert Fergusson’s birth, seen by many as the man who inspired Burns to write poetry.

Thought to be the most ambitious act of poetic commissioning ever carried out by a Scottish University, the poems will cover the Scottish, English and Gaelic tongue with contributions from Meg Bateman, John Burnside, Robert Crawford, Douglas Dunn, W N Herbert, Tracey Herd, Kathleen Jamie, Edwin Morgan, Les Murray and Don Paterson.

As part of the Scottish Arts Council funded project, the poets will also take part in a series of events throughout Scotland, the UK and further afield, including a once-in-a-lifetime reading by the poets in St Andrews itself.

Robert Fergusson was born in Edinburgh in 1750 and began writing poetry while studying at the University of St Andrews. It soon became clear that he had a gift for satire and went onto write both fondly and scathingly of St Andrews and Scotland as a whole, most memorably in Auld Reekie when he described the smokey plume which used to hang over his Edinburgh birthplace.

While writing in St Andrews, he championed the University janitor while condemning the Principal and Professors for downgrading native culture. Described by Burns as “Heaven-taught” and “By far my elder Brother in the muse”, Fergusson died insane in an Edinburgh asylum at the age of 24, when Burns was just 15. Burns died 11 years later at the age of 36.

Today, the University of St Andrews employs several leading Scottish writers including John Burnside, Robert Crawford, Douglas Dunn and Kathleen Jamie and is a centre of excellence for creative writing and Scottish studies.

Based in the School of English, the St Andrews Scottish Studies Institute brings together some of Scotland’s foremost poets and specialists in Scottish cultural history to offer interdisciplinary research, taught postgraduate and undergraduate degrees. SASSI’s staff are editing the largest ever history of Scotland and, later this year, will publish major works on Scottish literature, history and art history, in addition to new creative work.