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William Letford

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  • Billy Letford published his first collection of poetry while working as a roofer. Since then, his work has been adapted into film, projected onto buildings, carved into monuments, adapted for the stage, written onto skin, cast out over the radio, and performed by orchestras. He has helped restore a Medieval village in the mountains of Northern Italy, taught English in Japan, fished with his bare hands in Indonesia, and been invited to perform in Iraq, South Korea, Lebanon, Australia, Germany, India, Poland, and many more countries.
    Praise for William Letford 'Letford's book is perfectly timed: gripping, entertaining and desperate... The imaginative task into which Letford draws us, in this bold and unmissable book, is to see what it means to become reliant on essentials and to uncover the truth about what those essentials are.'
    Kate Kellaway, The Guardian
    'very probably the next big thing in Scottish literature.'
    Teddy Jamieson, Sunday Herald
    'a distinct new voice making itself heard amidst the hubbub of Scottish literature.'
    Alastair Mabbott, Sunday Herald
    William Letford is a young Scots poet who writes about daily life, work and love. His first book, Bevel (Carcanet), includes a great diatribe against cloth-eating larvae ('fucking moths / perforated my kilt between weddings')
    Helen Simpson, Times Literary Supplement, Novemeber 30, 2012
    'The pleasure I have gained from William Letford's poems... will, I am confident, stay with me for ever.'
    Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
    'William Letford is the future of Scottish poetry.'
    Mark Buckland, Cargo Publishing
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