Roddy Lumsden
Roddy Lumsden was born in St Andrews, and attended University and continued to live in Edinburgh before moving to London. His first collection, Yeah Yeah Yeah (1997) was shortlisted for the Forward and Saltire prizes, and his second, The Book of Love (2000), for the T. S. Eliot Prize. He had nine full poetry collections and was the editor of Identity Parade: new British and Irish poets (Bloodaxe, 2010) and The Best British Poetry 2011 (Salt, 2011).
Lumsden was a freelance writer, specialising in quizzes, puzzles, and popular reference: Vitamin Q: a temple of trivia, lists and curious words was published in 2004. Roddy died on the 10th of January, 2020, aged 53.
Read the poems
Further Information
Obituary in The Scotsman.
From the Library Catalogue
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Celebrating 30 years of Dream State with its editor Donny O’Rourke
December 2024
In this extended version of Nothing But The Poem Kevin Williamson interviews Donny O'Rourke, editor of Dream State - The New Scottish Poets which was published in 1994 and remains the gold standard of poetry anthologies, and, arguably, the...
Nothing But The Poem – Roddy Lumsden
February 2023
In this podcast, Scottish Poetry Library's Sam Tongue introduces us to three poems by the late Scottish poet, Roddy Lumsden, whose influence continues to reverberate around contemporary poetry.