Ian Duhig FRSL
@ianduhig
'An Arbitrary Light Bulb' Poetry Book Society 2024 Choice: "some of the most moving, restrained, memorable and technically adroit poetry of our times" TLS 3/25
Delighted to read this review of 'An Arbitrary Light Bulb' in the Sunday Times by @MrRavoon Graeme Richardson. I was particularly pleased with the phrase about 'accessible complexity', paradox being a theme of the book and of life in contrary Leeds, a via negativa less-travelled.
I would be proud for one of my poems to be bookmarked with a taco
For a rock star, Ozzy had an ear for an original simile: “I hate vacuum cleaners. They make the most nauseating fucking racket in the world, like a dying wildebeest being dragged up and down the corridor.” (Via Rolling Stone)
theatre503.com/whats-on/advan… My playwriting workshop runs from September 15 to October 20. Book now!
From the Anthony Earnshaw Retrospective opening at Dean Clough: Gail Earnshaw, Tony's widow who was the driving force behind all this, Nigel Walsh, Curator of Contemporary Art at Leeds Art Gallery (which has works by Tony) and, er, me. Exhibition continues until 28th September.
The @LDNIrishCentre is looking for a Choral Leader for the London Irish Community Voices Choir "a creative, friendly, high-energy individual who is excited to work with our community & has a diverse knowledge of Irish music" Rehearsals every Wed evening londonirishcentre.org/about/work-lon…
Very pleased indeed to see this review of The Holdings, a poetry anthology driving from a recent project of the same name with @leedsirish, a biopsy of the Leeds Irish community in this city based on holdings in the city museums: yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/The-Se…
Sam Rowley's photo won the People’s Choice Award in the 2019 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. He thinks they're fighting but I prefer to think of it as a late-night tango between two mice very much in love.
Just learned the Ukrainian equivalent of our phrase 'there's no such thing as a free lunch' is 'the only free cheese is in a mousetrap', which I think better because it is more poetic.
Just found the perfect poets' waste paper basket in our local charity shop.
The poem 'Omni' in my book 'An Arbitrary Light Bulb' published last year mentions the 'library' on 36 buses for which riders bring and borrow books. Just back from one where I found this by Andrew Crozier from 1967, gathering several of his volumes and newer work.
I'm sure Proust and Flaubert can be included in any list of wearers as there is no documented proof of dressing gown removal before getting in bed to write.
Not to mention the dressing gown's contribution to literature -- Rodin sculpted Balzac wearing one. It is not being too lazy or depressed to get out of one, it is the uniform of great writers.
Most poems come from our reading, so if your writing seems to have died . . . read!
cf "They change their sky, not their mind, who cross the sea" -- Horace (Ep. I. 11 25-27)
This always reminds me of Wallace Stevens' statement that "A poem is a meteor" in 'Adagia', similarly existing by virtue of its self-annihilation.
Me at Leeds City Gallery yesterday investigating the role of spectacles in art.
