Wednesday 19 February 2020

Colin Dardis


Colin Dardis is a poet, editor, arts coordinator and creative writing tutor based in Belfast. His work has recently been listed in the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing, Over The Edge New Writer of the Year Award, and Best Reviewer of Literature, Saboteur Awards 2018, as well as being published widely throughout Ireland, the UK and USA. Colin co-runs Poetry NI, a multimedia platform for poets, for which he co-edits FourXFour Poetry Journal, and co-hosts the monthly open mic night, Purely Poetry. His latest collection is The Dogs of Humanity (Fly on the Wall Press, 2019).

What book(s) are you reading right now?
Human Aggression by Anthony Storr, a psychology/psychiatry book from the late sixities that I picked up in a charity shop. My last collection touched upon how people treat each other (often in unsavoury ways), hence the interest. I'm also reading an unproofed manuscript of Linda McKenna's debut poetry collection. It's coming out from Doire Press shortly, and I'm providing a blurb for it.

A book you loved reading at a child.
I loved the Hardy Boys books, a pair of American teenage detectives. I read dozens of them, amazed how the author Franklin W. Dixon could write so many. I honestly felt quite gipped when I found out the name was just a pseudonym for a writing syndicate.

A book you have read more than once.
There are a few: The Gospels of the Holy Bible, Animal Farm, quite a few of Beckett's novels and plays. With there being so much still to read, and new books coming all the time, if something is going to be reread, it has to be outstanding (or really short!).

A book that you started but never finished.
I tried to re-read Virginia Woolf's The Waves recently. I quite enjoyed the narrative structure when I read it as a student originally, but this time round, it was just frustrating after about a dozen pages. It's still on our bookcase, it will be tackled eventually!

A book that you feel deserves more attention.
I just read Dr Becky Smethurst's excellent book Space: 10 Things You Should Know. It's an accesible,  entertaining guide to some of the mind-boggling complexities of the universe. Smethurst's style is light, fun and her passion and enthusiasm is evident on every page. 




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