The Blind Roadmaker
Published on 11. February 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
80 pages
978-1-5098-0981-3 (ISBN)
Description
If the starting point for a number of poems in Ian Duhig's richly varied new collection is Sterne's Tristram Shandy, its presiding genius is the great eighteenth-century civil engineer, fiddler and polymath Blind Jack Metcalf - whose life Duhig here celebrates, and from whose example he draws great inspiration. Writing with an almost Burnsian eclecticism, Duhig explores urban poverty, determinism, social justice and the consolations of poetry and music on a journey that takes in everything from a riotous reimagining of Don Juan to the tragedy of Manuel Bravo (the Leeds asylum seeker from Angola who was forced to defend himself in court, and later took his own life). No poet today writes with such a sense of political and social conscience, and The Blind Roadmaker affirms Duhig's belief in poetry as a means of commemorating those who least deserve to be forgotten.
Reviews / Votes
An undoubtedly stimulating, thoroughly entertaining collection. . .one of Duhig's charms is that, for all his learning, he retains humility -- Kathryn Gray * Magma Review * Ian is a one-off, a true original. In The Blind Roadmaker he charts the journeys of 18th century blind Jack Metcalf who learned to read by feeling headstones faces as well as those of today's dispossessed with a hat's off empathy, wit and intelligence -- Jackie Kay * Herald *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Pan Macmillan
Target group
Interest Age: From 18 years
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 8 mm
Weight
130 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5098-0981-3 (9781509809813)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Ian Duhig worked with homeless people for fifteen years before devoting himself to writing activities full-time. He has won the Forward Best Poem Prize once and the National Poetry Competition twice. His last two books with Picador, The Lammas Hireling (2003) and The Speed of Dark (2007), were both PBS Choices and shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. His most recent short story appeared in The New Uncanny, winner of the Shirley Jackson Best Anthology Award for 2008, and his most recent musical collaboration, with the Clerks early music consort, on their CD Don't Talk - just listen! (Signum, 2009). He lives in Leeds with his wife Jane and their son Owen.