Table of Contents

Poets included in Identity Parade: Patience Agbabi, Jonathan Asser, Tiffany Atkinson, Simon Barraclough, Paul Batchelor, Kate Bingham, Julia Bird, Patrick Brandon, David Briggs, Andy Brown, Judy Brown, Colette Bryce, Matthew Caley, Siobhan Campbell, Vahni Capildeo, Melanie Challenger, Kate Clanchy, Polly Clark, Julia Copus, Sarah Corbett, Claire Crowther, Tim Cumming, Ailbhe Darcy, Peter Davidson, Nick Drake, Sasha Dugdale, Chris Emery, Bernardine Evaristo, Paul Farley, Leontia Flynn, Annie Freud, Alan Gillis, Jane Griffiths, Vona Groarke, Jen Hadfield, Sophie Hannah, Tracey Herd, Kevin Higgins, Matthew Hollis, A.B. Jackson, Anthony Joseph, Luke Kennard, Nick Laird, Sarah Law, Frances Leviston, Gwyneth Lewis, John McAuliffe, Chris McCabe, Helen Macdonald, Patrick McGuinness, Kona Macphee, Peter Manson, D.S. Marriott, Sam Meekings, Sinead Morrissey, Daljit Nagra, Caitriona O'Reilly, Alice Oswald, Katherine Pierpoint, Clare Pollard, Jacob Polley, Diana Pooley, Richard Price, Sally Read, Deryn Rees-Jones, Neil Rollinson, Jacob Sam-la Rose, Antony Rowland, James Sheard, Zoe Skoulding, Catherine Smith, Jean Sprackland, John Stammers, Greta Stoddart, Sandra Tappenden, Tim Turnbull, Julian Turner, Mark Waldron, Ahren Warner, Tim Wells, Matthew Welton, David Wheatley, Sam Willetts, Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch, Tamar Yoseloff.

About the Author

Roddy Lumsden (1966-2020) was born in St Andrews, and lived in Edinburgh for many years 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. He was a freelance writer and editor, also specialising in quizzes and word puzzles, and represented Scotland twice on BBC Radio 4's Round Britain Quiz. He also held several residencies, including ones with the City of Aberdeen, St Andrews Bay Hotel, and as “poet-in-residence” to the music industry when he co-wrote The Message, a book on poetry and pop music (Poetry Society, 1999). His other books include Vitamin Q: a temple of trivia, lists and curious words (Chambers Harrap, 2004).

Reviews

Lumsden hosts a supremely eclectic party for 85 "new" British and Irish poets… [including] generation-definers such as Daljit Nagra and Kate Clanchy, Colette Bryce and Alice Oswald, and a host of guests who will count – for many readers – as smart or seductive discoveries.
*Independent*

This important and timely book offers a fascinating window on to the wide variety of poetry being produced in Britain and Ireland at the moment… It's an exhilarating anthology, its tone one of magnanimous pluralism. Not since Edward Lucie Smith's British Poetry Since 1945, published by Penguin in 1970, has one anthology embraced such a wide range of both experimental and formalist styles.
*Guardian*