Alan Bold

Bold had acquainted himself with MacDiarmid in 1963 while still an English Literature student at Edinburgh University. His debut work, Society Inebrious, with a lengthy introduction by MacDiarmid, was published in 1965, during Bold's final university year. This early publication kick-started a prolific poetic career with Bold publishing another three books of verse before the end of the decade, including the ambitious book-length poem The State of the Nation. He also edited The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse (1970) and published a 1973 biography of Robert Burns. Bold married an art teacher, Alice. Their daughter Valentina is a Robert Burns scholar like her father, who teaches at the University of Glasgow. A lifelong heavy drinker who dealt with the boozy life of the poet in such collections as A Pint of Bitter, Bold died after a short illness in a hospital in Kirkcaldy at the age of 54.

• Penguin Modern Poets 15, 1969 • Society Inebrious, Mowat Hamilton, Edinburgh, 1965 • The Voyage, 1966 • To Find the New, Chatto and Windus, London, 1967 • A Perpetual Motion Machine, Chatto and Windus, London, 1969 • The State of the Nation, Chatto and Windus, London, 1969 • A Pint of Bitter, Chatto and Windus, 1971 • The Malfeasance, Alan Bold, 1974 • This Fine Day, Borderline Press, 1979

• The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse Penguin, 1970 • Biography of Robert Burns, Pitkin Pictorials Ltd, 1973 • Letters of Hugh MacDiarmid (edited), 1983 • East is West a novel, Keith Murray Publishing, 1991 • Making Love: The Picador Book of Erotic Verse, 1978 • The Bawdy Beautiful: The Sphere Book of Improper Verse, Editor, 1979 • Mounts of Venus: The Picador Book of Erotic Prose, 1980 • The Sensual Scot, Paul Harris Publishing, Editor, 1982

• Murray, Glen (1980), review of This Fine Day, in Cencrastus No. 2, Spring 1980, pp. 43 – 45, • Czerkawska, Catherine Lucy (1980), review of The Bawdy Beautiful: The Sphere Book of Improper Verse, Cencrastus No. 2, Spring 1980, p. 45 • Anderson, Carol (1983), The Bold Type, review of The Sensual Scot, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 13, Summer 1983, p. 56