I am a retired computer Systems Analyst. I have an interest in well-written prose and am an avid reader. I recently did some volunteer work as a copy editor and found that I enjoyed working to improve someone else’s writing. For me, it’s more fun to tweak writing than to produce it in the first place. I am considering doing more on Wikipedia, probably related to cleaning up articles. --Phillicia Cattertails 17:49, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
John Nicol was a Scottish poet. At least one book of his poetry, Poems and Songs, was published, in 1880 in Androssan by J. H. Mearns, "Ayrshire Weekly News Office".
One of Nicol's great-great-grandaughters arranged to have the book republished privately in 2004. She wrote an instroduction (describing the history of the volume she had access to and giving the family history that she knew), created a family tree, and added photographs of her branch of Nicol's family. A few years later, great-great-grandson from the American branch of Nicol's family visited Scotland and met some of the Scottish branch of the family. A second printing of the poetry book, published in 2007, expanded the family tree.
The Oxford English Dictionary refers to a John Nicol poem in its definition of "strum":
Strum Mining. Sc. [of obscure origin.] (See quotes) 1880 J. Nicol Poems & Songs 75. They [Sc. The miners] come to their daily task with powder flask and tinder, straw and strum.
An anthology of Scottish poets, The Scottish Poets Recent and Living [1] by Alexander G. Murdoch (published in 1883 by Thomas D. Morrison (Glasgow) and Hamilton, Adams & Co. (London)) gives a brief biography (page 277) calling him "[a} poet of real, though unassuming, merit". The anthology includes two of his poems, To a Wounded Sea Bird and Home and Country. The books also includes a drawing of Nicol (p. 270).