For some years after his death, Soutar
tended to be regarded as a writer of whimsical children's poetry in Scots,
because of his Bairnsangs or Whigmaleeries, such as 'Bawsy Broon' or 'The
Three Puddocks' ('Three wee bit puddocks/Sat upon a stane:/ Tick-a-tack,
nick-a-nack,/Brek your hawse-bane.'). These are short, pithy, often humorous
pieces, though many of them have considerable depth. The first Collected
Poems (1948), edited by Hugh MacDiarmid, did not include some of his
strongest adult poetry. More recently critics such as Douglas Gifford have
come to recognise the wide range and profundity of his work.

Many of his adult poems too are short lyrics which are deceptively simple.
Though he was in touch with most of the poets of the Scottish Literary
Renaissance, Soutar draws on the whole tradition of Scottish poetry, most
notably on the ballads with their hints of a supernatural world which
touches this one. Of the images recurring in his work, two are particularly
noticeable: the unicorn and the gowk, or cuckoo.

Several of Soutar's greatest poems, such as 'The Auld
Tree', contemplate the state of Scotland. In some of them the unicorn
appears as a symbol of vision and hope, as in the haunting, ballad-like
'Birthday'. ('It steppit like a stallion,/Snaw-white and siller-bricht,/And
on its back there was a bairn/Wha low'd in his ain licht.') It is, of
course, one of the supporters on the royal arms of Scotland, but Soutar
wrote in his journal in 1938, 'From a purely Scottish emblem the creature
has come to represent truth, reality, life under varying aspects but all
manifesting the eternal nature of man's quest'.

The symbol of the gowk has a more personal resonance. At first it represents
trickery - the cuckoo's traditional role - but later it takes on the gentler
but also sadder quality of illusion, and ties in with those poems such as
'The Tryst' which express Soutar's loneliness and unfulfilled desire. These
in turn take their place in Soutar's shifting view of his confined
environment, from the grim 'Autobiography' and the restriction of 'Reverie'
('The world is shrunk into a little garth') to the rather more sanguine 'The
Room' and 'Cosmos': 'There is a universe within this room.'

As well as his poetry, Soutar's
journals, extracts from which have been published under the title Diaries
of a Dying Man, are essential reading. While his unique situation did
not make him a writer, there can be little doubt that it evoked some of his
most profound and moving work.