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 Beata Duncan 1921 - 2015

Obituary by Stephen Duncan

A posthumous collection and memorial readings are planned. Please contact Stephen Duncan if you would like to be kept informed.

Beata Duncan studied at Birkbeck and University Colleges, London and lived in North London.  She taught English Literature and Creative Writing to students from nine to ninety (see feature article "Listening to her talent blossom") and worked in publishing and as a researcher.

Her poems have been widely published in anthologies, newspapers and magazines, including The Observer, Spectator and London Magazine, and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4, including Poetry Please.  She was twice a prize winner in the National Poetry Competition and gave regularly readings in London and across the UK.  Several of her poems were set to music by the composer Richard Arnell.

Her pamphlet collection, Apple Harvest, was published by Hearing Eye (2000, ISBN 1-870841-72-7):

"Razor-sharp irony and a taste for the surreal are counter-balanced by a tender moral sense in the poems of Beata Duncan.  Her voice, which bears traces of the best and worst of life's experiences, lends her work an authority we can trust.  I have watched with interest as the stylish modern fables slowly accumulated over the years; the resulting book has been well worth waiting for."

Hugo Williams
 

"These are seemingly simple, often ironic, poems that exhibit an unadorned presentation of life and its experiences.  They keep their emotion in check, demanding that the reader bring their own emotional energy to the poem.  This is what all good poetry should do...The poem Presents is a good example of her style.  The exchange of presents between friends is described — spinach for fresh mackerel.  We know that these gifts have value in the giving by the way they are described...   However, both gifts are allowed to waste, though not in any deliberate way, and the underlying sense of guilt comes through nicely...  There is no comment made about the relationship between the man and the woman in the poem.  Yet we are brought into the settled and accepted state of their friendship by the way the story is told.  Each word, each piece of information in these highly crafted poems is chosen and presented in a manner designed to solicit the desired emotional response in the reader...If you want some superb examples of 'show don't tell' poems, look no further."

Frank Dullaghan, review in Seam.
 

"Well worth reading...more than competent, accessible, and some...quite memorable."

Lynn Moir, comment, Second Light Newsletter

 

 

Beata Duncan photo

contact Stephen Duncan

poetry feature:
Listening to Her Talent Blossom

and in the shop ...

collections -

"Berlin Blues",
Green Bottle Press;

"Apple Harvest",
Hearing Eye


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