Alan Jackson

Alan Jackson was born in Liverpool in 1938, but moved to Edinburgh when he was aged just two. He attended Edinburgh University between 1956 and 1959, and made his first appearance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1960.

Although he has not been active publicly for a long time, Alan Jackson remains one of Britain’s cult poets. He was one of the prime movers in the poetry reading ‘scene’ of the 60’s and 70’s, giving hundreds of readings with Norman McCaig, Adrian Mitchell, Edwin Morgan, Pete Morgan and Brian Patten.

His publishers are: Penguin Modern Poets (1968), Fulcrum Press (1969) and Polygon (1989).

As he puts it: “Eventually it came to him that the point was to obey (live) the poetry rather than merely deliver it; and a radically different course of life began”. His two new titles, Walking Through Apocalypse and A Great Beauty are available from http://www.lulu.com/ .

Alan Jackson’s short poem, ‘Young Politician’, is to be found carved in the outer wall of the new Scottish Parliament along with quotations from Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and Hugh MacDiarmid.