05/01/2024
Tributes have been paid to the Scottish poet, writer, and political activist Edward Sean Linden, who has passed on to the realm of our LGBTQIA ancestors at the age of 88. From 1969 to 2002, he published and edited the poetry magazine Aquarius, which, according to The Irish Post, made him "one of the leading figures on the international poetry scene". Mr Linden was an independent thinking Catholic socialist, and struggled with his homosexuality and faith until meeting the progressive and inspirational Catholic priest Anthony Ross, who helped Mr Linden reconcile these two aspects of his personality. Linden would later contribute several gay themed poems to various anthologies. Having joined the Communist Party in his teens, Linden split with orthodox Soviet style communism following the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary in 1956, and along with many others on the British left, instead pursued an independent socialist philosophy. Visiting a radical bookstore in Glasgow, Linden read a copy of Catholic Worker the newspaper of the anarchist-communist movement within Catholicism, and began to get involved in the radical progressive Christian politics of groups like Pax Christi and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. In 2017, Linden said, "I've been described as a Catholic atheist, but that's not right. I am a Catholic who finds it difficult to believe in God. There was a day when I used to run about with rosary beads and stuff like that, but I don't do that now." Meanwhile, in 1963, he co-founded the Simon Community, a charity in aid of the homeless, with Anton Wallich-Clifford.
