The Rialto reprint John Siddique\u2019s first collection The Prize. Whether writing about his family\u2019s history, as in \u2018Variola\u2019, the story of the journey his father, as a child, made out of India after Partition, or celebrating the way lovers talk, as in \u2018Strawberries\u2019, or describing the lust in a dying love affair, as in \u201890 Day Theory\u2019, John is a poet full of surprises and racing energy. The good news is that after a couple of years focusing on prose he\u2019s returning to writing poetry. While you wait for his next collection, catch up with the first one! (More news on this book to come).
\nMichael Mackmin<\/p>\n
The Stolen<\/strong><\/p>\n I would reach out a hand to take my son\u2019s hand. Like calling through a fog, I would pass the years through a gold skimming pan, I would reach my hand across the years Hard bread for the palate. Liquid, too hot for the lips. I would melt the gold like the fool I am. Spread the leaf John Siddique was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, in 1964. He currently lives in West Yorkshire. After school he did various jobs, including a three year stint as a landscape gardener. He started writing in 1991, when he was 27. He now works as a full-time writer and has been involved in many writing and performing projects, such as Poet in Residence at The Lowry, at Meadowbrook Psychiatric Unit, at Ilkley Literature Festival, and at BBC Manchester.<\/p>\n A \u2018bold original voice… an exciting joy to read. Siddique is definitely one to watch.\u2019 John Siddique\u2019s poetry takes the reader on a journey, crossing the border country between love and loss, he charts his family\u2019s untold stories. Interested in exploring opposite worlds and seeming contradictions, his poetry is a brilliant balancing act. Sometimes steamy, often moving, The Prize is a bold, brave book with a big open heart. John Siddique\u2019s writing is playful and poignant. It explores the complexities of a fragmented world – of sex, family, loss and dream-life – with such clear-eyed, unsentimental candour that I go back to certain poems time and again for another immersion. He\u2019s not afraid of writing about love, its pain and rewards, its sudden shocking forces and darkly funny epiphanies – and his poems demonstrate generosity and humanity so often lacking in more brittle, defensive writers.
\nI would swivel a knee to dandle him.<\/p>\n
\ncaught in the deep grass which quickens
\nround my legs up here at the top of creation.<\/p>\n
\npicking out the flecks for the rush.<\/p>\n
\nto find his arm to pick him up.<\/p>\n
\nA map of a demolished town.<\/p>\n
\nover stones and leaves. I might plate the breadth of England,
\nand still find myself wanting to reach him, without a clue
\nof what I would say.<\/p>\nAuthor biog<\/h3>\n
\nThe North<\/p>\n
\nJackie Kay<\/p>\n
\nCatherine Smith<\/p>\n