James Aitchison was born in Stirlingshire in 1938. He has published six collections of poems: Sounds Before Sleep, Spheres, Second Nature, Brain Scans, Bird-Score and Foraging: New and Selected Poems (Worple, 2009). He is the author of the critical study, The Golden Harvester: The Vision of Edwin Muir.
His articles on the creative process and poetics have appeared in Acumen, Agenda, The Dark Horse, The David Jones Journal and The Philosopher.