Alan Bold

Alan Norman Bold (1943–1998) was a Scottish poet, biographer and journalist.

He edited Hugh MacDiarmid's Letters and wrote the influential biography MacDiarmid. Bold had acquainted himself with MacDiarmid in 1963 while still an English Literature student at Edinburgh University. His debut work, Society Inebrious was published in 1965 during Bold's final university year. It contains a lengthy introduction by MacDiarmid which is only partly relevant to Bold's poetry. 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.

Bold also edited The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse (1970) and published a biography of Robert Burns.

A lifelong heavy drinker who dealt with the boozy life of the poet in such collections as A Pint of Bitter, Alan Bold suffered a heart attack in early 1998 and died in a hospital in Kirkcaldy at the age of 54.

Publications

Poetry

• Society Inebrious Mowat Hamilton, Edinburgh 1965
• 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
• East Is West" a novel, Keith Murray Publishing, 1991

Other

• Letters of Hugh McDiarmid (edited)
• The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse
• Biography of Robert Burns, Pitkin Pictorials Ltd, 1973. SBN 85372 167 x 173/40