Terrific Melancholy by Roddy Lumsden

Terrific Melancholy by Roddy Lumsden

Roddy Lumsden's Terrific Melancholy is a book of changes, physical and emotional. It begins with a diverse sequence on that most dubious and folkloric of changes, rebirth into a new life, exploring our history's advances - changeless, changeful. Meanwhile, in the lengthy title-poem, an actor's reluctant crush on a younger colleague leads him to look back on life from middle age, while the poet himself does the same during travels in the USA. This is Lumsden's sixth collection and it also contains a miscellany of new poems which display the writer's acclaimed inventiveness with form and structure and his breadth of approaches: satire, listing, praise poems and a new form, the 'ripple poem', which develops the use of 'fuzzy' rhyme.

There is a level of talent that will ransom any project in any schoolOn the one hand, it will be interesting to see where Lumsden goes next; on the other, he's so good that it hardly matters. -- D.H. Tracy * Poetry *
Although the verse is hopping with linguistic antics, the foci of the language are music and rhetoric and, whip-smart as these poems are, they tend to resist chin-stroking analysis - the rhymes, the larks, the brutal punch-lines tug Lumsden's poems off the page and into the living context they describe. -- Matthew Smith * Verse *
One of the best poets writing in English on the planet today. -- Don Share * Squandermania *

Roddy Lumsden (1966-2020) was born in St Andrews, and lived in Edinburgh for many years before moving to London in 1998. His first book Yeah Yeah Yeah (1997) was shortlisted for Forward and Saltire prizes. His second collection The Book of Love (2000), a Poetry Book Society Choice, was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Mischief Night: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2004) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. His later collections were Third Wish Wasted (2009), Terrific Melancholy (2011), Not All Honey (2014), which was shortlisted for the Saltire Society's Scottish Poetry Book of the Year Award, and So Glad I'm Me (2017), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2017 and the Saltire Society Scottish Poetry Book of the Year Award 2018. His anthology Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poets was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2010. He was a freelance writer and editor, also specialising in quizzes and word puzzles, and represented Scotland twice on BBC Radio 4's Round Britain Quiz. He also held several residencies, including ones with the City of Aberdeen, St Andrews Bay Hotel, and as poet-in-residence to the music industry when he co-wrote The Message, a book on poetry and pop music (Poetry Society, 1999). His other books include Vitamin Q: a temple of trivia, lists and curious words (Chambers Harrap, 2004).

SKU	GOR003721869
ISBN 13	9781852249083
ISBN 10	1852249080
Title	Terrific Melancholy
Author	Roddy Lumsden
Condition	Very Good
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Year published	2011-05-31
Number of pages	80
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us