Roddy Lumsden Mischief Night book event: A poet remembered
Neil Cooper pays tribute to the late St Andrews writer and teacher in the year that he would have been 60, recalling a poet whose wide knowledge and eclectic interests ran deep
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When poet Roddy Lumsden died in 2020 aged 53, it called time on a mercurial figure whose work impacted worlds beyond the rarefied literary circuit. This should be in evidence at Mischief Night which commemorates what would have been Lumsden’s 60th birthday, in Edinburgh’s Waverley Bar, the same venue where he launched his first collection Yeah Yeah Yeah in 1997.
Named after Lumsden’s 2004 book, Mischief Night will feature poetry, of course, but there will also be a focus on his other obsessions. This will come in the form of a quiz and will feature a soundtrack drawn from his substantial collection of 7-inch singles. The latter will be played by those behind a weekly event called Sleepless Nights, a Thursday night vinyl-only happening that took place at Edinburgh’s now long lost St James Oyster Bar, and which featured the sort of leftfield obscurities that fired Lumsden’s own musical tastes. Requests are being taken on the event website.
As unofficial writer in residence at St J, Lumsden’s poetry was fired by a mix of pop culture references and a love of arcane wordplay that made for a unique and deeply personal canon. Lumsden’s fondness of trivia also saw him host pub quizzes, while anyone who ever stood next to him as he worked his way through the questions on the lounge bar trivia machine will have been left feeling decidedly thick.
Back in 1997, Lumsden’s launch culminated in him kneeling on the floor of Black Bo’s bar on Blackfriars Street signing copies of Yeah Yeah Yeah with personal inscriptions for those who had bought copies. While this time out that obviously isn’t possible, what remains almost 30 years on is the hangover of one of his generation’s finest minds that has found a kind of immortality in the messy archive he left behind.
Roddy Lumsden Mischief Night, Waverley Bar, Edinburgh, Friday 12 June; picture: Richard Nicholson.