Tom Leonard (poet)

Tom Leonard (born 1944 in Glasgow, Scotland) is a poet who often writes in a Glaswegian dialect. His poem "Unrelated Incidents" is compulsory study for an AQA English Language GCSE qualification.

Tom Leonard has been a vital part of the Scottish literary renaissance for the past forty years. He has revolutionised poetry, both in form and content, and with Alasdair Gray and James Kelman has been appointed Professor of Creative Writing at Glasgow University.

Published in 1976 KMT his "Glasgow Poems" kick-started a literary counterculture.

In 1984 he released "Intimate Voices", a selection of his work from 1965 onwards including poems and essays on William Carlos Williams and “the nature of hierarchical diction in Britain.” It shared the award for Scottish Book of the Year and yet was promptly banned from Central Region school libraries. Despite such censorship the collection received widespread acclaim. Peter Manson, in the "Poetry Review", claimed the poems, “speak so precisely and with such a fierce, analytical wit that they transcend their status as poems and become part of the shared apparatus we use to think with. I don't know any other contemporary poetry of which that is so true.”Also, the poem 'six o clock news' is used in schools at GCSE level to look at dialects and cultures.

Whilst working as Writer in Residence at Renfrew District Libraries in 1990 Leonard compiled "Radical Renfrew: Poetry from the French Revolution to the First World War", an anthology resurrecting the work of long forgotten poets from the West of Scotland and proving the “traditional,” fictitious belief that Scotland at that time was a cultural wasteland. T. S. Eliot once claimed, to the effect, that Scotland has no literary culture. "Radical Renfrew "shows that this is incorrect and also suggests that in denying the existence of a native Scottish culture, the Scottish people have been denied “the right to equality of dialogue with those in possession of Queen's English or "good" Scots.”

Three years later he released "Places of the Mind", the only 20th century biographical novel of the Scottish writer James Thomson. Best known for his epic poem "The City Of Dreadful Night", Thomson’s life and works are captured by Leonard in a study of poetry, alcoholism and freethinking.

His most overtly political work followed in 1995. "Reports From The Present" compiles work from 1982 to 1994 including political satires, collages, essays, “antidotes, anecdotes and accusations” ranging from explorations of the differences between poetry and prose to scathing attacks on the forces of power that corrupt culture for financial or political gain.

"With Access to the Silence" (2004) he has compiled his poetic works from 1984 to 2003, exploring the experimental and the surreal to a greater degree without losing any of his truthfulness or openness. The highlight of the book is perhaps nora's place, a remarkably compassionate and moving piece focusing on a simple domestic day in the life of “just a human being/totally representative/as anyone is/outside the self/(and in it).”

External links

* [http://www.tomleonard.co.uk Tom Leonard's official website]

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