RIP Roddy Lumsden (1966-2020)

Over the weekend, Bloodaxe Books announced the death of Scottish poet Roddy Lumsden. He was 53. The editors at Bloodaxe, Lumsden's publisher, write:

We are very saddened by news of the death on Friday of the poet Roddy Lumsden, aged 53. He had been suffering from liver disease for the past four years, and died from a heart attack in the care home where he had been living since 2017. As well as being an innovative and highly engaging poet, Roddy influenced and assisted a whole generation of British poets, as editor, mentor, tutor and selfless promoter of their work.

Born in St Andrews in 1966, he lived in Edinburgh for many years, where he studied at the University of Edinburgh, before moving to London in 1998. His first book Yeah Yeah Yeah (1997) was shortlisted for Forward and Saltire prizes. His second collection The Book of Love (2000), a Poetry Book Society Choice, was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Mischief Night: New & Selected Poems(Bloodaxe Books, 2004) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. His later collections were Third Wish Wasted (2009), Terrific Melancholy (2011), Not All Honey (2014), which was shortlisted for the Saltire Society's Scottish Poetry Book of the Year Award, and So Glad I'm Me (2017), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2017 and the Saltire Society Scottish Poetry Book of the Year Award 2018 . His anthology Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poets was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2010.

Roddy played a significant role in the development of Bloodaxe’s publishing over the past 25 years, not just through his own innovative collections and seminal anthology Identity Parade, but probably even more so through his mentoring, editing and promotion of many of the younger poets we and other publishers have taken on over that time, many of these going on to receive far greater recognition than Roddy himself.

Continue reading at Bloodaxe's site here. In addition to Lumsden's contributions to Bloodaxe, he was also a frequent contributor to Poetry magazine over the span of many years. Head here to read Lumsden's work and celebrate his life.