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The Little Shed of Various Lamps

This book concerns the work of mourning and subsequent attempts to reconcile oneself to loss. The book also explores, and makes direct use of, narratives surrounding climate change, earthquakes, astrophysics, the history of lamps, together with attendant conceptual discussions of illumination, darkness, grief, spirituality, and reconciliation. In particular, the book is informed by archival material relating to the scientific and social histories of lamps, as well as recent scholarship on the relationship between quantum physics and language (specifically as outlined by Werner Heisenberg), dark energy, environmentalism, and critical discourses surrounding mourning. The book was written as a composite of different genres, and blends poetry with prose narrative, essay, personal testimony, and quotation. The book also juxtaposes verbal and visual imagery through the inclusion of 26 images drawn from a range of sources. The form of the book was the result of a significant period of research exploring cross-genre writing, particularly in terms of the boundaries between critical and creative practice. The research into this mode of writing reaches back to Duffy’s doctoral studies when he explored in detail the relationship between post-modern Continental philosophy and composition, and which has continued in more detailed form in his recent literary biography of the poet Rosmarie Waldrop. The work of Maurice Blanchot, Walter Benjamin, Edmond Jabès, and W.G. Sebald formed important parts of the critical research process into the history and scope of this form of writing. Walter Benjamin’s Passagenwerk, and the critical literature surrounding it, was particularly informative, specifically in terms of its constellation of an eclectic range of sources and subject areas. In addition to this form of cross-genre writing, research for this book also led to detailed research into poetic sequences and non-narrative writing, from the modernist period to the present day.