Map for the Blind

RAB WILSON was born in New Cumnock, Ayrshire, in 1960. After an engineering apprenticeship with the National Coal Board he left the pits following the miners' strike of 1984/5 to become a psychiatric nurse. As a Scots poet, his work has appeared in The Herald as well as Chapman, Lallans and Markings magazines.Rab has performed his work at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the StAnza poetry festival at St Andrews, the 'Burns an a' That' Festival at Ayr, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the Wickerman Festival, and many other gatherings large and small. He was 'Bard of the Festival' at Wigtown, Scotland's National Book Town. Additionally, Rab is a previous winner of the McCash Poetry Prize and for the past three years has been the 'Robert Burns Writing Fellow In Reading Scots' for Dumfries and Galloway Arts Association. Currently a member of the Scots Language Resource Centre's national council, Rab also sat recently on the Ministerial Advisory Group on Scots Language at the Holyrood Parliament. He is a 'weel-kent' advocate for Scots writing. He now lives in New Cumnock with his wife Margaret and daughter Rachel.

Rab Wilson is one of the best poets now working in Scotland. In the interest of his language,subject matter, form of address, development of style and perspective and tone, he is far more curious and willing to take risks than almost all of his contemporaries. PROFESSOR ALAN RIACH...poetry to rival the best published in Scotland, or written by a Scot in the past 30 years. Bursting with ambition, technically brilliant and funny. Scotland on Sunday on Accent o the MindExecuted with great skill and verbal energy... this venerable text is intriging, amusing and 'doonright eccentric'. PROFESSOR WILLY MALEY on The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam, in Scots