Biography

Ian Duhig (b. 1954) was the eighth of eleven children born to Irish parents with a liking for poetry. He has won the National Poetry Competition twice, and also the Forward Prize for Best Poem; his collection, The Lammas Hireling, was the Poetry Book Society’s Choice for Summer 2003, and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and Forward Prize for Best Collection. Chosen as a New Generation Poet in 1994, he has received Arts Council and Cholmondeley Awards, and has held various Royal Literary Fund fellowships at universities including Lancaster, Durham, Newcastle and his own alma mater, Leeds.

His poetry is open to a multiplicity of subjects, from Apollinaire to Yorkshire pudding, from string vests to sutras; he has a particular gift for ignoring barriers between subjects that could be thought to be distinct. Thus ‘Paschal Anthem’ revels in the detail that Lent once ended with ceremonies to ridicule the herring, combining the studious discovery of that fact with the less than glamorous fish. This poem is also written to the tune of ‘The Shoals of Herring’ by Ewan MacColl, which – although Duhig does not sing it – shows his mastery of metrical demands, as does ‘There is No Rose of Such Virtue’, a hymn to “Our Lady of Atheists” inspired by experiences of Cumbria during a foot-and-mouth outbreak.

While involved in social work, he encouraged people, whether homeless or suffering from addiction, to help themselves through poetry; this period informs ‘Chocolate Soldier’, where a famous folk music club in York, next to Duhig’s hostel for the homeless, barred everyone connected to the hostel – while “singing songs like ‘I am a jolly beggarman'”. The grim humour of that is a recurrent note. ‘Fundamentals’, for example, is a dramatic monologue packed with irony in which a missionary attempts to convert a reluctant crowd to a polite, colonial Christianity.

Duhig ensures he mentions any knowledge that is necessary to these poems, whether it is the Hiroshima setting of ‘From the Plague Journal’, or the Suibhne reference in ‘Margin Prayer from an Ancient Psalter’, and reads the poems in a gravelly tone that accentuates the music and feeling of each. This is true to his description of poetry, in an interview with Lidia Vianu, as “the alchemy of mind and heart”.

Ian Duhig’s Favourite Poetry Saying:

“Only those who are lost in error follow the poets.” – Qur’an 26.224, trans. M.A.S. Abdel Haleem

Ian's recording was made on 6 February 2003 at The Audio Workshop, London and was produced by Richard Carrington. Photograph by Paul Maddern.

Poems by Ian Duhig

Ian Duhig in the Poetry Store

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Books by Ian Duhig

Awards

1987

National Poetry Competition for Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen 1989 Northern Poetry Competition for Splenditello

Prize website
1989

Northern Poetry Competition for Splenditello

Prize website
1991

Forward Poetry Prize (shortlist) for The Bradford Count

Prize website
1995

T. S. Eliot Prize (shortlist) The Mersey Goldfish

Prize website
1998

Arts Council Writers' Award

Prize website
2000

National Poetry Competition for "The Lammas Hireling"

Prize website
2001

Cholmondeley Award

Prize website
2001

Forward Best Single Poem Prize for "The Lammas Hireling"

Prize website
2002

Forward Poetry Prize (shortlist) for "Rosary"

Prize website
2003

International Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin

Prize website
2003

T. S. Eliot Prize (shortlist) for The Lammas Hireling

Prize website
2004-07

Royal Literary Fund Fellowship Leeds Trinity University

Prize website
2006

Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature

Prize website
2007

Costa Poetry Award (shortlist) The Speed of Dark

Prize website
2007

T. S. Eliot Prize (shortlist) for The Speed of Dark

Prize website
2007-08

Royal Literary Fund Fellowship University of Bradford

Prize website
2016

The Blind Roadmaker shortlisted for Forward Best Collection

Prize website
2016

The Blind Roadmaker shorlisted for T S Eliot Prize

Prize website

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