An Arbitrary Light Bulb

A brilliant, meditative collection from one of Britain's finest contemporary poets.

The most original poet of his generation

Duhig telescopes topical allusions, scholarly references and coarse humour into tightly-shaped, surreal poems which burst open with explosive moral force

His poetry is learned, rude, elegant, sly and funny, mixing gilded images, belly-laughs and esoteric lore about language (including Irish), art, history, politics and children's word-games

. . .one of Duhig's charms is that, for all his learning, he retains humility

Ian is a one-off legend, a true original

Multifarious and maverick, deeply personal and political, Duhig’s poetic vision alchemises the heart and mind. This is a brilliant collection from a balladeer of our times, a poet who stands for the people, always with a sense of compassion, humility and wry humour

Duhig's poems are, among other things, wonderful tour buses: they speed down lanes of recollection, scooting along infinite library shelves and hopping from stop to stop with happy disregard for such minor inconveniences as the Highway Code, geography, or linear time

"Accessible complexity" is not an oxymoron in Duhig's work . . . This [is] Duhig's most moving book, full of memorable poetry not just of skill but of heart

Ian Duhig worked with homeless people for fifteen years before becoming a writer and he is still actively involved with minority and marginalised groups on artistic projects. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Cholmondeley Award recipient, Duhig has won the Forward Best Poem Prize once, the National Poetry Competition twice and been shortlisted for the T.S Eliot Prize four times. He lives in Leeds with his wife Jane.