Bold, Alan Norman, 1943-1998 (poet, journalist, biographer)

Person

Dates

Existence: 1943 - 1998

Biography

Alan Norman Bold was born in Edinburgh in 1943. He was the editor of Hugh MacDiarmid's Letters and wrote the influential biography MacDiarmid. His own debut work, Society Inebrious was published in 1965. This early publication started a prolific poetic career. In 1970, he published the book-length work The State of the Nation, and also edited The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse (1970), and in 1973 a biography of Robert Burns. He suffered a heart attack in early 1998 and died in a hospital in Kirkcaldy at the age of 54.

Found in 2 Collections and/or Records:

Holograph ms in ink of the poem 'Cities' by Alan Bold, over a watercolour washed sky with a blackened sun and chimneyscape

Fonds — Box CLX-D-33, Folder: Coll-1771 / SC-Acc-2016-0127

Identifier: Coll-1771

Content Description

This holograph ms in ink of the Alan Bold poem 'Cities' is over a watercolour washed sky with a blackened sun and chimneyscape. It is signed 'Alan Bold 72'. It begins...:

Cities stink.

Sunshine shames them.

A vast pink

Sky above stone and grime.

Dates: 1972

Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections

Typescript of a lecture given by Alan Bold entitled "Art and Action" , March 1965

Item

Identifier: Coll-1848/24-0029

Scope and Contents Typescript containing the full text of a lecture entitled "Art and Action" given by Alan Bold to the Edinburgh Branch of the Young Communist League in March 1965. It starts as follows: "The function of art is the extension of human consciousness. That statement should satisfy anyone as to why he or she should bother themselves with art. But it won't, and that is why I am here tonight. I want to show you that art is as important in the struggle for communism as politics is, and that serious...

Dates: March 1965

Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Smaller acquisitions collection