Paul Hullah

Paul Hullah was born in the Yorkshire countryside but has lived and worked in Japan since 1992. Prior to this middle-aged oriental interlude, he laid his hat in Edinburgh in a non-ivory tower — albeit whilst studying via an M.A. (first class, with honours) towards a PhD in English Language and Literature at Edinburgh University, awarded in 1992 — with the popular authors Ian Rankin, Thom Nairn, and Paul Reekie (spiritual companion to Irvine Welsh, Reekie was an acclaimed cult author, who, tragically, took his own lfe in 2010). For well over a decade Hullah was a notoriously active figure in the British underground music and art scenes as both performer and journalist, described at the time by Sounds magazine as a 'silver-tongued devil' while one of his many unsuccessful bands, Teenage Dog Orgy, was hailed as 'legendary' by the NME. He has performed poetry readings in the Edinburgh Fringe festival, in London, New York, Tokyo, and once on an aeroplane high somewhere over Eastern Europe. He currently works as Professor of British Poetry and Culture at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo. In 2013 he was a recipient of the Asia Pacific Brand Laureate International Personality Award, an honour endorsed by the 4th Prime Minister of Malaysia as well as the country's 13th King. The award citation stated that he was chosen for ‘paramount contribution to the cultivation of literature [that has] exceptionally restored the appreciation of poetry and contributed to literary education.’

AND HERE'S WHAT YOU COULD HAVE WON (Dionysia Press: Edinburgh, UK, 1997), Hullah's first award-winning book-length collection of poetry, attracted much critical acclaim. Reviewers variously heard echoes of W. S. Graham, John Ashbery and Christina Rossetti in the uniquely layered pieces. Touching moments of lyrical observation were given jagged, modernist edges to form a poetry where genuine pathos and subtle, ironic humour combined to address particular and universal aspects of loving and living. His second collection, LET ME SING MY SONG (Dionysia, 2000) marked a maturation as Hullah's style moved towards fiercely personal discursive and confessional poetry, whilst retaining the wit and collisions of imagery which characterised his earlier work. LET ME SING MY SONG is not necessarily happy poetry, but there is a lifting, cathartic sense of affirmation in its wise, melancholic, wholly honest acceptance of experiences experienced, justifying the favourable comparisons with Larkin and Ashbery frequently made by readers of Hullah's work. UNQUENCHED, a slim volume of haiku in English, illustrated by the acclaimed Scottish artist Susan Mowatt, was published by Afterdays Press, Scotland, in 2002. AGE'S BULLETS, a fourth volume of previously unwritten poems was published in 2006 by Vagabond Press of Sydney, Australia. In August 2011, Word Power Books UK. published HOMING, a selection of 24 poems by Hullah dealing with loss and recovery, illustrated by Susan Mowatt. HOMING was performed/exhibited as a multi-media piece featuring music by Davy Henderson and translations by Hidetoshi Tomiyama in 2012 in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Edinburgh. SCENES: WORDS, PICTURES, AND MUSIC, a collaboration with the painter and musician Martin Metcalfe, was published by Word Power Books UK in August 2014. SCENES featured Hullah's poetry and was performed during the Edinburgh Book and Fringe festivals in 2014. Hullah's seventh poetry collection, CLIMBABLE (2016), and a critical monograph, WE FOUND HER HIDDEN: THE REMARKABLE POETRY OF CHRISTINA ROSSETTI (Revised Edition) (2018), were both published by Partridge Books.

Some critical reactions to Hullah's work:

Paul Hullah's poems are unlike any others today. They are not only very good but very direct and moving. 'Love's Long Journey' is an example. And they possess a shapeliness and clarity that other poets today might envy. Their beauty is as enigmatic as it is straightforward.

JOHN BAYLEY

Fine poems, some with an enchantment that touches me deeply.

IRIS MURDOCH

Why isn't Paul Hullah's verse better known?... He often deals with poignantly transient erotic relationships, within a European tradition that goes back to the troubadours. He does so with modesty and wry humour... His rhythms suggest on one hand rock lyrics, on the other the virtuoso technical versatility of Romantic and post-Romantic nineteenth century writers. But his conversational personality is very much his own. I think that only a very stuffy or bigoted proponent of some other kind of poetry could resist that candid, rueful, singing personality.

ANGUS CALDER

‘[Hullah] seems softer than he once did. Maybe even fragile … He now exercises that honesty in his poems, but with considerable skill, and surprising tenderness.’

SHIRLEY MANSON