Roshan Doug

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Roshan Doug
Roshan Doug in 2020
Born	October 1963 (1963-10) (age 57) Jalandhar, India
Nationality	British
Occupation	Writer
Years active	1995 - present (25 years)
Website	roshandoug.com

Roshan Doug is a British writer and academic of Indian descent. He is a former Poet Laureate of Birmingham appointed in 2000.^[1][2][3] Since 2002 he has also been an INSET poet for the Poetry Society of Great Britain^[4] and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

In 2020 Roshan founded a charity organisation, Perspective Education, that supports and trains teachers and educationalists to provide a creative curriculum and holistic approach to teaching, learning and child development.

Today, Roshan is also a public speaker and critic for BBC London and The Times Educational Supplement.^[5][6]

Early life and career[]

Roshan Doug was born in 1963 in Jalandhar, Punjab, India and studied English at Lancaster, Lancashire. After graduation, he took up an academic post in Greece, teaching English Language for the British Council. On his return to Britain (1988), he won the Cripps Hall Residential Tutorship at the University of Nottingham where he completed an MA in Modern English Literature.^[7]

After working in private schools in Athens for the British Council, FE colleges and universities in London and Oxford, Roshan was appointed a Visiting Professor in English at Birmingham City University in 2003. In the same year, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts for his contribution to education and literature.^[8] In 2015, after winning a bursary, Roshan completed his Doctorate in Education (Learning and Learning Contexts) at the University of Birmingham and then went on to publish an extensive range of papers on English in education.

Literary career[]

Roshan Doug's first book "Delusions" was published in 1995. The Socialist Review described him as 'a fresh and intelligent new voice in Anglo-Asian poetry'. He has been anthologised by Spouting Forth (1997), Staple (2000), and Bloodaxe in their "Out of Bounds" volume of poetry (2013).

Roshan's book The English-knowing Men published in 1999 was nominated for the Forward Prize for the Best Collection of that year. In 2001 the Orange Studio commissioned a collection, No I am Not Prince Hamlet integrating themes of home, familiarity and cultural identity. In 2003, Roshan was commissioned by Birmingham City University to produce a series of short elegies to commemorate the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York. This formed a volume entitled The Delicate Falling of a God. He was shortlisted for the Asian Jewel Awards in the same year.

Roshan's first collection of love poems, What Light is Light was published by the University of Birmingham in 2012 and then "Mother India" the following year. Together with a commission from the Indian High Commission, it leads critics to conclude that his politics were shifting towards Hindu nationalism.^[7][9]

The British Library have catalogued and digitalised his work along with books, interviews and audio copies of selected poems.^[10]

Roshan has been commissioned by numerous national and international organisations such as National Gallery London (1998), BBC Children in Need (2000), Birmingham Waterhall Gallery (2001), Martineau Place Birmingham (2001), Buckingham Palace for the Queen's 75th birthday (2001), The High Commission of India (2003), Adult Learners' Conference NEC Birmingham (2003), Embassy of the United States, London (2005), Graham Kershaw in 2005, and BBC Radio 4's Something Understood.^[11][12][2]

In 2016, Roshan provided a report to the British Government; "BIC Government White Paper, Handwriting: Developing Pupils' Identity and Cognitive Skills"^[13] and Runnymede Trust , The Runnymede Project, School Report, London.^[14] His second romantic collection of poems ''Kabhi Kabhie'' was published in 2021 by Amazon Books, UK.

Publications[]

As a columnist, Roshan Doug has written various articles for national and international newspapers/publications such as The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Sunday Times, EasternEye and the BBC in-house magazine, Ariel. Roshan has written a wide range of papers - from The Business of Poetry for North East Wales Institute of Higher Education for their conference "The Narrative Practitioner" in 2007 to a prospective essay "Gandhi: a Punjabi perspective" for The London Review of Books in 2017, and "The British Schools' National Curriculum: English and the politics of teaching poetry from different cultures and traditions" for The Journal of Curriculum Studies in 2010.^[15][16]

MAJOR PUBLICATIONS:

• Delusions, Charles Green Education (1995) ISBN 0-9526283-0-9
• The English-knowing Men, Castle View Publications (1999) ISBN 0-9535407-0-7
• No, I am Not Prince Hamlet, Orange Studio (2002) ISBN 0-780954-216207
• The Delicate Falling of a God, UCE Press (2003) ISBN 0-90435457-1
• Illusions, Delusions and Dirty Words, UCE Press (April 2004) ISBN 0904354806
• What light is Light, Birmingham University (November 2011) ISBN 09771473968012
• Kabhi Kabhie, Amazon/Kindle (February 2021) ISBN 9798704608554

ACADEMIC PAPERS IN JOURNALS:

• ‘Ivor Gurney’s poetry’ in The English Review (March, 2011);
• ‘The National Curriculum; English and the politics of teaching poetry’ in The Journal of Curriculum Studies, September 2011;
• ‘European Poetry – Connectedness?’ Europe on the Move Conference, University of Birmingham, May 2011;
• ‘Where’s the Offence in Offensive Language?’ English e-magazine (September 2012);
• ‘Recontextualizing The Duchess of Malfi,’ English e-magazine (March 2012)
• ‘Whose Research is it Anyway?’, paper given to Oxford University (March 2012)
• ‘It Was Not to Be: the tragedy of fate and sexuality in Tess of the D’Urbervilles’, The English Review, December 2018
• ‘Native Son: the soul frets in the shadow’, English e-magazine (March 2018)
• ‘Ted Hughes: that space between night and light and half-light,’ English e-magazine (February 2019)
• ‘Women’s Poetry of the First World War’, English e-magazine (December, 2017)
• ‘King Lear and Hinduism’, The English Review, June 2020)
• ‘Edward Thomas: ‘‘will do never again’’, English e-magazine (March 2019)
• ‘Dr Faustus: the unsettling spirit of man’, English e-magazine, (April 2021)
• ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist: disconnect and belonging’, English e-magazine (September 2021)
• The British schools’ National Curriculum: English and the politics of teaching poetry from ‘different cultures and traditions’: The Journal of Curriculum Studies
• ERIC - EJ1219559 - Handwriting: Developing Pupils' Identity and Cognitive Skills, International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies, 2019-Apr

PAPERS:

• The University of Birmingham, Creativity and Cultural Diversity in Modern Poetry, June 2001;
• Birmingham Forum, Creativity in Business, Marketing and Communications, July 2005;
• Seal Communications, The Business of Poetry and the Art of Selling, Birmingham, June 2005
• Birmingham's European Summer School, Europe and Modern Creativity, July 2005;
• Birmingham's European Summer School, Multi-Culturalism, Race and Diversity in Poetry, June 2001;
• Fair Trade Conference, The Role of the Poet, Birmingham, 2006;
• UNESCO, Wrexham, North Wales, Censorship and Arts, May 2006
• The Narrative Practitioner, North Wales Institute of Higher Education, 2007
• The Barbican Theatre, Poetry/Creative Writing Consultant, Jack and the Beanstalk, 2007
• Nottingham Trent University, Department of English, Reading and The Creative Process, 2007
• St Catherine's College, The University of Cambridge, Shirley Society, Measuring Poetry, 2007
• The University of Leicester, Poetry Conference (paper entitled ‘What do you mean by other cultures and traditions?’) September 2011;
• Juniper (training agency), Wolverhampton, paper entitled, ‘What do we mean by education?’ June 2011
• The University of Birmingham University, School of Education, November 2011;
• The University of Oxford, Department of Education, STORIES Conference, March 2012
• The University of Birmingham, Book to the Future Festival (2016), ‘The Book is Dead’ – a talk on the changing reading habits

BBC Broadcasts[]

Roshan Doug has written and presented many arts documentary features for BBC such as ''Infinite New Verses'' (recorded in China 2004), ''Pause for Thought'' (Radio 2), ''Something Understood'', ''A Land of Ghosts'', ''The Asian Single Parents'' (London 2006), ''A Land of Dreams and Goblins'' (India 2002), ''Cuba Libre'' (Havana 2006), and ''The English-knowing Men'' on the themes in Anglo-Asian Poetry (London, 2005). His BBC programme "The Good Father" broadcast in 2004, was nominated for the Sony Radio Awards^[17] whilst on ''A Good Read'', he championed the works of Philip Larkin especially his volume ''The Whitsun Weddings'' and its impact on modern poetry.

Bibliography[]

• "Delusions" (1995), Birmingham, Charles Green Publications
• "Thicker than water" (1998) - West Midlands
• "The English-knowing Men" (1999), West Midlands, Castle View Publications
• "No, I am Not Prince Hamlet" (2001), Birmingham, Orange Studio
• "The Delicate Falling of a God" (2003), Birmingham, UCE Press
• "Illusions and Delusions and Dirty Words (2004), Birmingham, UCE Press
• "What Light is Light" (2012), Birmingham University Press, UK
• "Kabhi Kabhie" (2021), Amazon, UK

References[]