Into perplexity: as an itch chased round
an oxter or early man in the cave mouth
watching rain-drifts pour from beyond
his understanding…
—“The Beautiful”, by Roddy Lumsden (1966–2020) – born #OTD, 28 May. A 🎂 🧵
Published in POETRY magazine, Dec 2008
1/5
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/51938/the-beautiful
You bastards! It’s all sherbet, and folly
makes you laugh like mules. Chances dance
off your wrists, each day ready,
sprites in your bones…
—Roddy Lumsden, “The Young”
Published in POETRY magazine, Dec 2008
2/5
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/51937/the-young
Ambition knocks – a tropical disease.
My voice slows up and comes at you
as if through a wave of coconut milk…
—Roddy Lumsden, “The Drowning Man”
Published in POETRY magazine, June 2004
3/5
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=42182
From 2017: Roddy Lumsden talks about his work & his collection SO GLAD I’M ME, published by Bloodaxe Books & shortlisted for the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize
4/5
“This is punch-the-air poetry, the knowing in that feeling place in your gut that someone understands and can put it in words so much better than your own.”
—Alison Craig reviews Roddy Lumsden’s SO GLAD I’M ME (Bloodaxe Books, 2017)
5/5
https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2018/07/so-glad-im-me-by-roddy-lumsden/
According to the blurb on So Glad I’m Me, this collection from Roddy Lumsden is ‘lighter and less inward looking’ than previous collections, his ‘most optimistic and accessible book’ since the Book of Love in 2000. Expecting of this poet some damned good poetry, and knowing that good poetry will always demand of me as […]
Assoc for Scottish Literature