Chuckies fir the Cairn: Poems in Scots and Gaelic by Contemporary Dumfries and Galloway Poets

'The poets Rab Wilson has gathered in this anthology represent and important and often neglected strand in contemporary Scottish poetry. Native Scots-speaking poets whose chosen language is distinct from English and expressive beyond the capacities of that sister-language, they are committed to their country, their place and the people who inhabit the world beside them. However, earthed and native as they are, there is nothing narrowing or oversimplified here.'
- ALAN RIACH

The range and liveliness of the poems are a testament to the continuing vitality of the Scots language in Dumfries and Galloway
- THE HERALD

RAB WILSON was born in New Cumnock, Ayrshire, in 1960. After an engineering apprenticeship with the National Coal Board heleft 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.