Ian Duhig
'An Arbitrary Light Bulb' the Poetry Book Society Winter 2024 Choice: "some of the most moving, restrained, memorable and technically adroit poetry of our times" --- TLS, 3/25
- Separated at birth
- I posted elsewhere about a lady in one of my Leeds Irish Health and Homes workshops who wrote 'I've had dementia / for as long as I can remember'. It came back to me reading @ravoon.bsky.social's tremendous debut 'Dirt Rich', full of technically brilliant, emotionally-devastating work like this:
- I've posted this story I heard in Ireland before, but recent discussions about art and the motivation of its makers brought it back to mind.
- "Look, all I'm saying is if we call him 'Alexander the Great' I think that puts a lot of pressure on a kid. Would 'Bill' really be so terrible?" Woodcut illustration of the conception of Alexander from 'Alixandre le grant', printed in Paris by Michel Le Noir ca. 1507-1520.
- Our train services are now so bad in Yorkshire that we have to factor in huge delays and begin our journeys as fish so we will have evolved into human beings by the time we get to Manchester
- This reminded me of when I went to London to read for the Irish Literary Society and called in at the wrong super-posh hotel. The manager looked at me and rushed out to check what I was up to: I told him and he replied. "I can assure you, sir, there will be no poetry reading in THIS hotel tonight!"
