A spontaneous rendition of Happy Birthday filled the central hall of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow yesterday as Edwin Morgan, Scotland's poet laureate, launched his new book of poetry to a standing ovation from the public.

The poet was enjoying a double celebration - his 87th birthday and the publication of Beyond the Sun, his new book of poems, published by Luath Press - when the gathered throng serenaded the lauded Glaswegian writer, whose new poems were written to accompany this newspaper's poll of Scotland's favourite paintings.

Lesley Duncan, The Herald's poetry editor, Liz Lochhead, the writer who has succeeded Morgan as Glasgow's own laureate, and Alan Riach, the professor of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University, read poems from the collection to a sizeable crowd in the museum, and Professor Morgan himself, confined to a wheelchair, read two poems - one dedicated to The Skating Minister, the painting attributed to Sir Henry Raeburn, and Windows in The West, by Avril Paton.

"Both are poems that I like a lot and I think can come across to a wide variety of people," he said, before cutting a celebratory cake.

The book also contains an introductory essay by Ms Duncan, a postscript by Ms Lochhead and an essay by Professor Riach.

In the poems, Morgan reacts to the cockiness of Raeburn's minister on the ice of Duddingston Loch, as well as the complex emotions stirred by Dali's famous, bloodless, crucifixion image.

Readers can now also access footage of the poet reading a selection of the poems at www.theherald.co.uk/edwinmorgan/.

You can hear him read six poems, dedicated to a handful of the paintings that made the top 10 in 2005.

The poems he reads are inspired by Salvador Dali's Christ of St John of the Cross, Rembrandt's Man in Armour, the Skating Minister, Joan Eardley's Flood Tide, Windows in the West and FCB Cadell's Orange Blind.

The Herald ran the poll to find the public's favourite painting in a public collection after a UK poll appeared to overlook many notable paintings which were held in Scotland.

Dali's iconic work, which has now been rehung in the refurbished Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, won with 29% of the readers' votes, coming ahead of Paton's Windows in the West and Eardley's painting, which was Morgan's favourite.