Dreamthorp

31 December 1830 – 5 January 1867

**Alexander Smith** (1830-1867) was born in Kilmarnock to a lowlander John Smith and highlander Murray Smith. He was part of the Spasmodic School along with other poets such as Sydney Dobell and P.J. Bailey, whose works were notable for their rapid rise and fall from fame. These Spasmodic poets were associated for their writing traits of lengthy, displaced imagery, odd themes and dark poems. He worked in the linen factory since he could not afford college, before he started writing poetry. His earlier poems, A Life in Drama and other Poems (1853) which appeared in the Glasgow Citizen, was well received. However, the morality of the spasmodic poetry was later questioned by critics, espe…