And this morning...

And this morning I sit and savour Tom Duddy's poems yet again, their quiet resonance, their unassuming ability to reveal human truths, their delicate merging of cadence and meaning, and I yearn yet again for new poems by him that can never come, and I celebrate yet again the book in my hands that means I can still sit and savour Tom Duddy's poems...

The jolt of recognition

Looking back at when I was first hooked by verse, I remember that one of the main, unexpected attractions were the sudden jolts of recognition that I encountered in certain poems that my teachers offered up. Those jolts were addictive and they still are. They excite me by opening up new trains of thought about my own life, while also consequently signposting poets who are going to stay with me.

Here's an example. I make no bones about featuring Tom Duddy once more, because he's exceptional. Full stop. Here's the opening to his poem "Their Child" from The Hiding Place (Arlen House, 2011):

"It takes me half a second too long
to get their names out, though I knew
who they were the moment they stepped
out of the crowd, hailing me cheerfully..."

This might be unassuming language, but what about that jolt? Can you feel it too?

Tom Duddy's The Café

Most of my favourite poetry is dangerous. It breaks the rules and takes risks. By that, I don't mean that it necessarily undermines metrics or flouts grammar. Instead, I'm referring to a great poet's ability to pull off something that shouldn't work at all.

One such example is Tom Duddy's poem "The Café". It comes from his indispensable first full collection, The Hiding Place (Arlen House, 2011), which inhabits my desk alongside his posthumous book, The Years (HappenStance Press, 2014). Duddy achieves delicious simplicity in "The Café", convincing the reader that his words couldn't have been written in any other way. Here's an extract:

"...Though I always ask for one
coffee - regular, black - she
never presumes to guess.
And so each day is a new day.
Which is as it should be.
There is an understanding
that there is no understanding..."

Count those four uses of "is" in eight lines, alongside the seemingly mundane repetition of "day" and "understanding".Yet the poem undoubtedly works. How? Forget logical analysis or explanation, this is verse that's been lifted from the ordinary by Duddy's magisterial touch.

A lurch of the heart, Tom Duddy's The Years

When approaching a book that's been published posthumously, the reviewer must confront inherent difficulties such as how to criticise the dead and how the book might have been different had the writer lived.

In the case of Tom Duddy, the first issue is easily resolved. I admire his work for numerous reasons that I will explain below. What's more, I'm convinced the next few years will demonstrate that he is a major poet. Dead writers are a hard sell - they can't do readings or push their work via social media - yet The Years (HappenStance, 2014) should prove a slow-burning success as word of its quality spreads.

As for the second point, this book has provided me with the umpteenth reminder that death stops all of us in our creative tracks at one point or another. There will always be a lingering doubt as to where someone's writing might have taken them, but that shouldn't stop our savouring what has been achieved.

And Tom Duddy's The Years is an achievement. Some poets arrest the reader with striking rhythms and dazzling turns of phrase, but Duddy's verse is far more understated and nuanced. His work might even seem loose on a first reading. In fact, the opposite is true. His apparent ease and linguistic simplicity lull the reader with a false sense of banality before a sudden acceleration brings us to the core of his inspiration. At this point we're forced to go back immediately to the beginning of the poem, reassessing the poet's choice of words, realising their impact and recognising that every single one of them pays its way.

The afore-mentioned technique means that it's exceptionally difficult to quote from Duddy's work, as the slow build-up of effect is lost when a few lines stand alone. However, I'll try to illustrate something of what I mean with an example from Story Time. The poem begins with snippets of typical fairy tale plots and ends with the following:

        "...Life's not like that,
you think, until one day you hear
hushed word of someone you sat
beside in High Infants, and there
is the same lurch of the heart."

Of course, our reaction is intensified by the knowledge that this time Duddy's classmates are feeling that "same lurch" when hearing of his death.

Even though much of this collection was written after a diagnosis of cancer, mortality is seldom an explicit theme in The Years. It tends to lurk in implicit comparisons with Duddy's intense expressions of his wonder at living and his affection for those around him.

In other words, this is a joyous book. For instance, I defy you to come to the end of Nights Out without wanting to grab someone you love and give them a massive hug. And no, I'm not going to quote from it. It's far too good in its entirety. Buy this book and read the poem, but make sure that the someone in question is nearby when you do so.

Tom Duddy in Smiths Knoll

Smiths Knoll, a long-running U.K.-based poetry magazine, has bitten the dust, and Issue 50 will be the final one. As a sample of its contents, the editor have posted a poem by Tom Duddy on their website. The Reception is one of Duddy's last poems before his death earlier this year - it's an excellent piece, packed with exquisite observations, and you can read it here. His forthcoming posthumous collection from HappenStance Press promises much!

Tom Duddy

I was deeply saddened yesterday to hear of Tom Duddy's death. He was an exceptional poet and his humanity shone through every line of his verse.

In a fairer world, Tom Duddy's collections would sell in their thousands. Even so, his popularity is guaranteed among those of us who are still convinced that poetry can be an accessible and entertaining art without losing its depth. His capacity to capture and transform moments, especially in terms of love, accompanies us now and in the future, as in this example from The Small Hours:

"...As thought gives way to love, the rhythm falters,
her breathing lurches and comes fitfully,

a name, hardly a name, is drily mouthed,
and I enclose her hand all-roundedly
and hold it, hold it, while the dream rages."

HappenStance published Duddy's first chapbook, which took its title from the afore-mentioned poem, while Arlen House brought out his first full collection, The Hiding Place, in 2011. I gave the latter book a richly-deserved glowing review on this blog back in December, and Tom Duddy found the time to write and thank me even in the immediate aftermath of the diagnosis of his illness. I'm just pleased he witnessed the slow-burning growth of his reputation.

I gather there was a new collection in the pipeline and I very much hope that it sees the light of day. Tom Duddy was acquiring an ever-larger band of poetic followers, and the best memorial would be to encourage more readers to discover his work. For the moment, I'd like to finish this post by pointing you in the direction of the recordings of four poems that he uploaded to SoundCloud, the last of them just a few days ago. Duddy was a terrific reader of his own verse. Listen, enjoy, remember him and spead the word!

Tom Duddy's recording of Left Bank

When reviewing Tom Duddy's excellent collection, The Hiding Place, a few weeks ago on this blog, I was struck by the subtle, unobtrusive musicality of his verse. That feeling was only reinforced for me when I followed a link that Nell from Happenstance Press posted on her Twitter feed to a wonderful recording of Duddy's reading of Left Bank, a stand-out poem from his book. You can hear it here.

Some poets swallow their lines, others over-egg effects. Duddy, meanwhile, just gets on with the task of bringing his verse alive, of reaching the audience. I cannot recommend this recording enough.

Review: The Hiding Place, by Tom Duddy

First things first, this book is terrific!

Let's start with some background info. The Hiding Place is Tom Duddy’s debut full collection. Published by Arlen House in Ireland, it was recently shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry. This Prize is awarded annually to the writer of the best first collection published in the UK or Ireland in the preceding year.

Tom Duddy teaches Philosphy at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and his academic background is of immense interest in the context of The Hiding Place. Poets are often said to wear their erudition lightly, but Duddy goes far beyond that, exploiting it in idiosyncratic and immensely subtle ways, approaching life so as to understand it, metaphysics constantly filtered through the concrete, as in the following example from The Small Hours:

“A siren far out on the public road

breaks the circle of acid thought, and I turn

to find her pressed close, warm, palpable…”

The juxtaposition of “thought” and “palpable”, together with the play between them, is key to an understanding of Duddy’s poetics, as is the sense of public and private. Throughout this poem, as indeed throughout the whole collection, the poet is inviting us along with him.

The Hiding Place is shot through with a rare generosity towards the reader, capturing, transmitting and transmuting kernels that lie in Duddy’s mind. He casts new light on old scenes, thus enlightening us about our own lives. This is what I most treasure about poetry. It’s what lifts certain poets and poetry into a very special place.

The collection is also characterised by a delicate weighing of the effect of words. Their music is at first unassuming and then all the more powerful for this as their resonances build. I found myself rereading the poems over and over again. They were immediately accessible, but gave more and more with time in a cumulative effect. This extract from the title poem is an example of just what I mean:

“…Someone whose mind has been elsewhere

will have turned around and seen us

and stopped smiling and decided

that the time has come to wake us

to our fair share of the real...”

As can be seen above, Tom Duddy writes a poetry of the “mind” that’s rooted in the “real”. In no way limiting, this approach is in fact highly ambitious. What’s more, his achievements in this collection prove that the esoteric is not the only route to poetic depth. I can’t recommend The Hiding Place enough. Here’s hoping it finds an ever-increasing readership as the story of its exceptional qualities gradually comes out.