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From gardener to Los Angeles poet: 'It's a dream job,' says John
A HEBDEN Bridge writer is to swap the Calder Valley for the Hollywood hills when he becomes Poet in Residence for Los Angeles next month.
John Siddique, of Brunswick Street, will spend May and June at the California State University where he will give readings, hold seminars and take writing classes.
The former landscape gardener will be only the fifth person to take the post which has run annually since 2005.
He said: "It's a dream job. I just can't wait to get out there and work with all the different cultures that make up LA.
"I don't consider myself some kind of high cultural poet. I just write what I like but it's great to be given the opportunity to share that with people – it's what poetry is all about."
The commission will include working with young movie makers to create 26 short films based on his poems, and helping translate work by Mexican writers into English.
At the end of his stint the 44-year-old will give a reading of work created while out there.
And Mr Siddique added he wanted to work in schools and a prison while out there – but would also take in several of the tourist highlights.
"Of course, I'll want to spend some time sitting by the Pacific with a glass of orange juice," he said.
He was nominated for the post by the British Council, which helps organise the position each year.
It is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, an American public agency dedicated to supporting excellence.
Mr Siddique said: "I didn't apply for it, I was just opening my emails one morning and there was one asking if I'd want to do it. It was completely out the blue."
It is the latest in a line of unusual commissions for the poet who is originally from Rochdale.
Some of his poetry has been carved into the pavements around Blackpool, while he also spent three years as writer at Wetherby juvenile prison.
An example of John's work:
Other people's children by John Siddique
He is eight and good at football. His mind flits blacker and whiter than a magpie
from playstation to plastic sword, chocolate, internet, to nothing to do, to slamming the ball.
He has a will of iron. Can bend his mother's and my love for him like plasticine;
When he wears his stick-on tatoos in the same place on his shoulders as I have mine,
when he calls me 'old chappy,' as we scream through the air as human aeroplanes.
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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