Dr Ian Seed

Current Teaching

DELC 355: Narratives of the Italian Resistance in Literature and Cinema (Convenor).

ITAL 301: Translation Italian-English.

CREW 203: Creative Writing.

CREW 303: Creative Writing.

CREW 900: MA in Creative Writing.

Research Interests

I am interested in post-war Italian literature and cinema which is connected to the Italian Resistance and its legacy, in particular the writings of Beppe Fenoglio. In my recently completed doctoral research I explore such questions as: how can trauma, especially that caused by civil war and its aftermath, be represented in narrative? What is the meaning of a 'committed literature'? What is the relationship between autobiography and fiction, and the different kinds of truth that each genre investigates and represents? How far does language reflect reality and to what extent does it create its own reality?

I am a practising creative writer of both poetry and short fiction, and have translated poetry and prose from French (Pierre Reverdy), Italian (Ivano Fermini, Lalla Romano, Edoardo Sanguineti) and Polish (Joanna Skalska). Amongst other writing projects, I am currently working on a series of short fictions with a connection to Italy.

Additional Information

My poetry, fiction, and translations (from French, Italian and Polish) have appeared in a range of journals, such as The North, PN Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Sentence (USA), Shearsman, Stride (online), Tears in the Fence, and Poetry Wales; and in a number of anthologies, such as This Line is Not for Turning: An Anthology of British Prose Poetry (edited by Jane Monsoon, Cinnamon Press, 2011),  Entanglements: New Ecopoetry (edited by David Knowles and Sharon Blackie, Two Ravens Press, 2012), and Sea Pie: An Anthology of Oystercatcher Poetry (edited by Peter Hughes, Shearsman, 2012). Individual collections and publications include:

Threadbare Fables (Like This Press, 2012)

Shifting Registers (Shearsman Books, 2011)

Amore mio (Flax ebooks, 2011)

the straw which comes apart (translations from the Italian of Ivano Fermini) (Oystercatcher Press, 2010)

Anonymous Intruder (Shearsman Books, 2009).

No-one Else At Home (translation from the Polish of Joanna Skalska) (Flax, 2007).

For a fuller profile, click here.

EXCERPTS FROM SOME REVIEWS:

'Beauty, in Seed's debut, never loses its power, and is everywhere pressing, active'  - Virginia Konchan, Jacket Magazine.

'The mystery and sadness of empty rooms, chance encounters in the street, trains traveling through a landscape of snow become magical in Ian Seed's poems' - John Ashbery (back cover of Shifting Registers).

 'The voices and landscapes in Anonymous Intruder are both elusive and yet hauntingly present' - Paul Wright, Writing in Education.

 'These poems and prose poems are full of atmosphere, fractured stories and suggestive directions' - Steven Waling, The North.

 'Journeys haunt this collection of poems [...] Ian Seed allows the reader a glimpse of what is already gone, a return to what is no longer there, a teasing echo' - Ian Brinton, Tears in the Fence.

 'There is something in Ian Seed's poems of the atmosphere of [De Chirico's] vast, empty plazas, something of their dream-like stillness & otherness, their brooding, uninterrogated menace. But there's a real enthusiasm and delight in here as well, an unforced pleasure in pushing at the language to open up new spaces and cast new light on the kaleidoscopic fragments of our experience' - C.J. Allen, Leafe Press. 

Professional Role

Part-time lecturer in Italian Studies

& tutor in Creative Writing.

Thesis Title

Literature and Resistance: Dimensions of Commitment in the Writings of Beppe Fenoglio and the Italian Neorealists

Qualifications

PhD (Lancaster University), MA (Lancaster University), BA (Nottingham University).

• www.shadowtrain.com

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• The Poetry of T.S. Eliot

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• Public Lecture on George Orwell's 1984 at the Duke's Theatre, Lancaster

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• Lancaster Litfest with Smith Doorstop

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