Self-Portrait with the Happiness

By David Tait

Part self-portrait, part love affair, the poems in Self-Portrait with The Happiness are obsessed with moments elsewhere. Rural England contends with immense Chinese cities via Thailand and Japan. The effect is a collection which craves the exotic in the everyday: puppeteers communicating through their puppets, sonnets sketched on the snowy rooftops of cars and Chinese dragons flying above the Lakeland fells.

David Tait is one of the most exciting new voices in contemporary poetry, and this eagerly awaited collection confirms the promise of his pamphlet, Love's Loose Ends, which won the Poetry Business Competition, judged by Simon Armitage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Poetry Business
• Release date: Feb 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781910367261

David Tait

David Tait lives in Guangzhou, China, where he works as a teacher, His poems have been widely published in magazines and anthologies including Ambit, Magma, Poetry Review and The Rialto and his pamphlet Love's Loose Ends won the Poetry Business pamphlet competition (as judged by Simon Armitage) in 2010. Tait first began writing at Leeds University when taking an undergraduate creative writing module taught by Amanda Dalton. He has since attended workshops and writing days, as well as an MA in Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University. He was "House Poet" at Manchester Royal Exchange for the Carol Ann Duffy & Friends poetry series between 2010 - 2013. In 2014 Self-Portrait with The Happiness was Shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and also received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors.

Book preview

Self-Portrait with The Happiness

David Tait

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank the editors of the following journals who kindly published some of these poems: Ambit, The Bastille, The Cadaverine, Eunoia Review, The Interpreter’s House, Magma, The North, Poetry Proper, Poetry Review, The Rialto and Stand.

A selection of these poems were included in the pamphlets Love’s Loose Ends (smith|doorstop) and Suitcase/Earthquake (Erbacce).

‘North York Moor’ was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in 2011.

The poem ‘Self-Portrait with the Calmness’ was translated into Spanish and thrown out of a helicopter during the Poetry Parnassus ‘Rain of Poems’.

My poem ‘The Lengths’ took its starting point from Carole Bromley’s poem ‘A Candle for Lesley’.

Some of these poems were also published in the following anthologies: Rain of Poems London 2012 (Casagrande), The Sheffield Anthology (smith|doorstop), Versions of the North (Five Leaves Press) and CAST: The Poetry Business Book of New Contemporary Poets (smith|doorstop).

Thanks also to Lin Yusi for letting me use his picture, ‘Dandelion’, for the cover image of this book.

Published 2014 by

smith|doorstop Books

The Poetry Business

Bank Street Arts

32-40 Bank Street

Sheffield S1 2DS

www.poetrybusiness.co.uk

Copyright © David Tait 2014

Digital Edition © 2015

ISBN 978-1-902382-01-2

David Tait hereby asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the

British Library.

Printed by Printondemand.com

Cover image: ‘Dandelion’ © Lin Yusi

Author photo: Aikapat Sittichai

smith|doorstop Books is a member of Inpress,

www.inpressbooks.co.uk. Distributed by Central Books Ltd.,

99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN.

The Poetry Business is an Arts Council

National Portfolio Organisation

Supported by Arts Council England

Contents

Puppets

Self-Portrait with The Dead

Elsewhere

The night my grandfather died

The Stars and the Dragon 

Northern Lights

Self-Portrait with the Moon

New in Love

Heart