: Ira Lightman :

iralightman, born 1967, is a conceptual poet. He has published several chapbooks, and a full length e-book at www.ubu.com. His first full-length collection in print appears from Shearsman in 2008. From 1994-1999 he wrote and performed songs with Come Flying and There, some of which exist as mp3 files on the web.

Since 2000, when he moved to the North-East and started a family, he tried unsuccessfully to become a vicar, and then started making Public Art. In Spennymoor, he devised the Spennymoor Letters, letter shaped sculptures spelling the town’s name like the Hollywood sign. He also added all Spennymoor’s surnames onto the “welcome to Spennymoor” signs. At Gateshead College he is making head shapes out of students’ txt messages. He has mapped the Northumberland National Park’s cultural heritage in 3D, and in the Wansbeck area of Northumberland he is making trees out of family trees. In the museum Bede’s World, he has been been making “word-photos”, encouraging users to take a sentence from any museum label and spell it out in photos captioned with one word each from the chosen sentence.

Ira’s work is informed by music, mathematics, language-learning, computers and pattern-seeking. Many of his published essays touch on improvisation and the vexed question of free verse for our times.. His own work often begins with a free improvisation or outburst, which Ira seeks to spot patterns in. The work then revises to reveal itself through its pattern, and then perform itself.

He has also made conceptual pieces for national radio, including one of the only celebrations in the world of Pi's 300th birthday in 2006 and a science-fiction play, The Coming of the Wopoli. He writes occasional essays about poetics on the web, and plays ukelele on YouTube. His website is www.iralightman.com.


iralightman
FEBRUARY MEETING IN NORTHUMBERLAND I became a landscape artist since when my report and draft were accepted weeks after the proposal. On the drive back, how am I now Southern norming the grey tyre to the grey road, eyes horizon-directional and yet also in the snow on the turn? Overhanging branches are highlighted as if this way purposeful and that (from the road) a glitter installation. It’s plain cold on the ground, sweet icing on a wall. Heaped clown pie under which a car’s bonnet is firmly determined, feels a terraced house’s funeral.
iralightman, born 1967, is a conceptual poet. He has published several chapbooks, and a full length e-book at www.ubu.com. His first full-length collection in print appears from Shearsman in 2008. From 1994-1999 he wrote and performed songs with Come Flying and There, some of which exist as mp3 files on the web. Since 2000, when he moved to the North-East and started a family, he tried unsuccessfully to become a vicar, and then started making Public Art. In Spennymoor, he devised the Spennymoor Letters, letter shaped sculptures spelling the town’s name like the Hollywood sign. He also added all Spennymoor’s surnames onto the “welcome to Spennymoor” signs. At Gateshead College he is making head shapes out of students’ txt messages. He has mapped the Northumberland National Park’s cultural heritage in 3D, and in the Wansbeck area of Northumberland he is making trees out of family trees. In the museum Bede’s World, he has been been making “word-photos”, encouraging users to take a sentence from any museum label and spell it out in photos captioned with one word each from the chosen sentence. Ira’s work is informed by music, mathematics, language-learning, computers and pattern-seeking. Many of his published essays touch on improvisation and the vexed question of free verse for our times.. His own work often begins with a free improvisation or outburst, which Ira seeks to spot patterns in. The work then revises to reveal itself through its pattern, and then perform itself. He has also made conceptual pieces for national radio, including one of the only celebrations in the world of Pi's 300th birthday in 2006 and a science-fiction play, The Coming of the Wopoli. He writes occasional essays about poetics on the web, and plays ukelele on YouTube. His website is www.iralightman.com.