Ian Duhig

Ian Duhig. Courtesy PanMacmillan.

Robert Ian Duhig (born 9 February 1954) is an English poet.

Life

Duhig was born in London, the 8th of 11 children born to Irish parents.

He graduated from Leeds University.

He worked for 15 years with homeless people.

He is a writer and teacher of creating writing at various institutions, including the Arvon Foundation.

Duhig writes occasional articles for magazines and newspapers including Moving Worlds, the Sunday Times, and the Independent on Sunday. He has also worked on a variety of commissions, particularly involving music. He wrote 'In the Key of H' with the contemporary composer Christopher Fox for the Ilkley Festival, co-operating again with Fox on an insert to 'The Play of Daniel', which can be heard on Fox's DVD 'A Glimpse of Sion's Glory'. He was commissioned by the Clerks, a vocal consort specializing in pre-baroque music, to write new poems for 'Le Roman de Fauvel', which was first performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank in 2007, and enthusiastically reviewed in the New York Times when performed in that city in 2009.

Duhig is an anthologised short story writer, represented in the award-winning 'The New Uncanny' from Comma Press, a creative updating of Freud's famous essay with other writers including A.S Byatt and Hanif Kureishi. He has also written for radio and the stage, the latter most recently with Rommi Smith, directed by Polly Thomas, on God Comes Home at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2009. This considered the ramifications of the case of David Oluwale, a homeless Nigerian immigrant to Leeds, who died after a campaign of persecution by 2 local policemen. Duhig has written poems about this tragic story, one of which appears in Kester Aspden's 'The Hounding of David Oluwale', published by Jonathan Cape.

Writing

The Independent: "Among recent writers indebted to the modernist masters ... are Paul Muldoon, W.N. Herbert and Ian Duhig: erudite and venturesome poets who specialise in a complexity which has one puzzling and laughing together.... Duhig is the most economical. The Lammas Hireling, shortlisted for this year's T.S. Eliot Prize, is his fourth book in 12 years and, at 69 pages, his longest by a short head. In his last volume, Nominies, he seemed to opt for a more direct and accessible style. This book requires greater concentration."

The Guardian: "The lightness of touch and the humour of this collection are subversive in contexts where many might fear to speak. Without pretension or presumption, The Speed of Dark stands up against some of the worst aspects of 'civilisation' and stands with the very best of contemporary poetry."

Recognition

Duhig won the National Poetry Competition Competition twice, in 1987 and 2001, and the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Poem in 2001. He has been named as one of the Poetry Book Society's New Generation poets, and had his work has also been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.

Awards

• 1987 National Poetry Competition for Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen
• 1989 Northern Poetry Competition for Splenditello
• 1991 Forward Poetry Prize (shortlist) for The Bradford Count
• 1991 Whitbread Poetry Award (shortlist) for The Bradford Count
• 1995 T.S. Eliot Prize (shortlist) The Mersey Goldfish
• 1998 Arts Council Writers' Award
• 2000 National Poetry Competition for "The Lammas Hireling"
• 2001 Cholmondeley Award
• 2001 Forward Best Single Poem Prize for "The Lammas Hireling"
• 2002 Forward Poetry Prize (shortlist) for "Rosary"
• 2003 Forward Poetry Prize (shortlist) for The Lammas Hireling
• 2003 T.S. Eliot Prize (shortlist) for The Lammas Hireling
• 2007 Costa Poetry Award (shortlist) The Speed of Dark
• 2007 T.S. Eliot Prize (shortlist) for The Speed of Dark
• 2008 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Anthology as contributor to 'The New Uncanny', Comma Press (short story)
• Royal Literary Fund fellowships at Trinity and All Saints College, Leeds University, Bradford University.

Teaching Fellowships at Lancaster and Leeds Universities. Northern Arts Literary Fellow 2000, International Writer Fellow, Trinity College Dublin 2003.

• Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature

Publications

Poetry

• The Emperor of Squab. Turret Bookshop, 1991.
• The Bradford Count. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1991.
• The Mersey Goldfish. Bloodaxe. 1994. ISBN 978-1-85224-325-8. 
• The Mersey Goldfish. . Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1995.
• Nominies. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1998.
• The Lammas Hireling. London: Picador, 2003.
• The Speed of Dark. London: Picador, 2007.
• Pandorama. London: Picador, 2010.

Anthologized

• Modern Irish Poetry: An anthology (edited by Patrick Crotty). Belfast: Blackstaff, 1995.
• Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century: A reader (edited by David Pierce). Cork, Ireland: Cork University Press, 2000.

Edited

• Anthology of New Yorkshire Writers. Yorkshire Art Circus, 1998.
• Nightwatchgirl of the Moon: A poetry anthology for life's silver anniversary.

The Most Unsuccessful Love Poem Since the Second World War - Ian Duhig

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Audio / video

Grand Union Bridge by Ian Duhig

• Ian Duhig, Anne Rouse, Matthew Sweeney, Benjamin Zephaniah (cassette). London: British Council / Tarset, Northumberland, UK: Bloodaxe, 2004.
• Ian Duhig: Reading from his poems (CD). London: The Poetry Archive, 2005.

Except where noted, discographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

External links

Poems

• "The Lammas Hireling"
• "Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen"
• "Charivari"
• Ian Duhig at the Poetry Foundation (2 poems)
• Ian Duhig (United Kingdom, 1954) at Poetry International (profile & 7 poems)

Audio / video

• Ian Duhig at The Poetry Archive
• Ian Duhig at YouTube

Books

• Ian Duhig at Amazon.com

About

• Ian Duhig at the British Council