In Memoriam: Roddy Lumsden (1966-2020)

SHOWstudio are saddened to hear of Scottish poet Roddy Lumsden's death on Friday 10 January 2020. Throughout his career of over two decades, Lumsden's poetry collections were well-received critically. His first book Yeah Yeah Yeah was shortlisted for the Forward and Saltire prizes in 1997, while his 2017 collection So Glad I'm Me was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Saltire Society Scottish Poetry Book of the Year Award 2018.

Lumsden was born in St Andrews, spending many years in Edinburgh before moving to London in 1998. Aside from poetry, he loved quizzes and word puzzles, representing Scotland twice on BBC Radio 4's Round Britain Quiz, and also served as 'poet-in-residence' for the music industry, co-writing a book on poetry and pop music The Message in 1999.

Roddy Lumsden also contributed to SHOWstudio, specifically the Flowers for Kate project from 2007. A twist on the floral trend that dominated the Spring/Summer 2008 collections, SHOWstudio and Nick Knight chose to orchestrate a tribute to singular supermodel Kate Moss for a V Magazine editorial. In the three weeks preceding the shoot, SHOWstudio sent floral arrangements expressing their feelings for Ms Moss, which were then photographed by Nick Knight to be used as silhouette masks in the post-production of a fashion film.

As a final touch, Lumsden composed verse on the set of the two-day shoot, recording an on-set diary available to read on the SHOWstudio site. His poem Bloom was delivered by Moss herself in the final fashion film.