He was educated at the private Hutchesons' Grammar School and in the same city at Glasgow University, where he received his M.A.
[11] Crawford is a prolific and successful poet and concerns himself with the nature and processes of creative writing.
He even goes so far as to claim that it "is part of the poet's delight even duty, to use such [scientific] words and experience in poetry".
He was a founder of the international magazine Verse in 1984 and worked as poetry editor for the Edinburgh publisher Polygon in the 1990s.
He publishes poetry and occasional works of criticism in the London Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement.