Pandorama

by Ian Duhig

Ian Duhig's erudite, compassionate, and often wonderfully droll poetry sits at the intersection of the literary and folk traditions, and moves in an easy and masterly fashion between them. While this has lent his verse an enviable musicality and force, it has also written him a visa to places poets rarely venture. In Pandorama , Duhig has mined poems and songs from the work-camps of England's itinerant navvies, jihadist training-grounds on the Yorkshire moors, football terraces, and meetings of the National Fancy Rat Society—and has painted a far truer picture of Britain's cultural diversity than most documentary accounts are able to give us. It is also one we would rather not confront. Duhig was always an elegist of great power, but never more so than in the quiet and focused anger with which he memorializes the tragic figure of David Oluwale, a Nigerian immigrant whose appalling racial harassment led to his death. With Pandorama , poetry’s finest social historian has delivered a riveting book, its vision as broad and unsettling as its title suggests.

Genres: Poetry

1111 pages, Paperback

First published October 20, 2010

About the author

Born to Irish parents, Duhig currently resides in Leeds.
He worked with homeless people for 15 years before becoming a full-time writer in 1994 and a concern with social issues continues to inform his work.
He has won the National Poetry Competition twice, and in 1994 was named as one of the Poetry Society's 'New Generation' Poets.

Reviews

[Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for a poetry reading group and found its focus on navvies fascinating. There was lots to think over, and (very exciting) the author joined in the discussion in our on-line group.