Sydney Goodsir Smith (26 October 1915 – 15 January 1975) was a New Zealand-born Scottish poet, artist, dramatist and novelist. He wrote poetry in literary Scots often referred to as Lallans (Lowlands dialect), and was a major figure of the Scottish Renaissance. Life He was born in Wellington, New Zealand, the son of Catherine Goodsir Gelenick and Sydney Smith, a pioneer in forensic science who later became a Regius Professor in forensic medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He moved to Edinburgh with his family in 1928. He was educated at Malvern College. He went to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine, but abandoned that, and started to study history at Oriel College, Oxford; whence he was expelled, but managed to complete a degree. He also claimed to have studied art in Italy, wine in France and mountains in Bavaria. In the late 1930s, Smith was introduced to the works of Hugh MacDiarmid by Hector MacIver, a literary critic who taught English at Edinburgh's Royal High School. In a letter dated 1 November 1941 he informed MacDiarmid that he 'gave up writing English for Scots' after reading A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926). His first poetry collection, Skail Wind, was published in 1941. Carotid Cornucopius (1947) was a comic novel about Edinburgh. Under the Eildon Tree (1948), a long poem in 24 parts, is considered by many his finest work; The Grace of God and the Meth-Drinker is a much-anthologised poem. His A Short Introduction to Scottish Literature, based on four broadcast talks, was published in 1951. His play The Wallace formed part of the 1960 Edinburgh Festival. Kynd Kittock's Land (1964) was a poem commissioned by the BBC for television broadcast. Other works broadcast by the BBC as dramas or poetic dialogues include The Death of Tristram and Iseult (1947), The Vision of the Prodigal Son (1959), The Stick Up or Full Circle (1961), The Twa Brigs (1964), A Night at Ambrose's (1972), Macallister (1973), and Gowdspink in Reekie (1976). Unpublished works include Bottled Peaches, a novel which draws on his life as a student in Oxford, and The Merrie Life and Dowie Death of Colickie Meg, a dramatic adaptation and continuation of Carotid Cornucopius. As a young man, Smith's ambition was to be an artist. While travelling in Europe in 1936–37, he made drawings in Switzerland, Germany, Italy and France. In post-war Scotland he made