Douglas Eaglesham Dunn
Poet and critic
Scottish poet and critic. Collected poems include Terry Street and Elegies, for which he won the 1985 Whitbread Prize.
It is not good to feel you have no future.
My clotted hands turned coins to muddy copper.
From ‘Washing the Coins’ in St Kilda’s Parliament (London: Faber & Faber, 1981)
They ruined us. They conquered continents.
We filled their uniforms. We cruised the seas.
From ‘Empires’ in Douglas Dunn: New and Selected Poems 1966-1988 (New York: The Ecco Press, 1989)