Career
He held an engineering apprenticeship with the National Coal Board, working at Barony Pit in Ayrshire, but gave up mining as a result of the United Kingdom miners" strike (1984–1985) and instead trained as a psychiatric nurse As well as poetry, he has also campaigned on health issues, for the rights of health workers to speak openly about their concerns and act as whistleblowers. In 2012 he spoke to lawyers at the 4th European Collaborative Conference.
He is closely connected with Scottish national poet Robert Burns, who was also from Ayrshire.
Wilson worked on the project Burnsiana with Calum Colvin and discovered that Burns may have taken part of Tam O" Shanter from English poet Edmund Bolton. In 2013 he was selected as the first James Hogg Creative Resident, living and writing in Ettrick Valley, home of the poet and writer James Hogg.
In 2009 he jokingly threatened to behead Conservative politician Kenneth Baker while giving the address to the haggis at the Wordsworth Trust Book Festival Burns Night.