Paul William Hullah is an English writer who has published several volumes of poetry, short stories, and literary criticism, as well as a series of literature-based EFL textbooks for university students in Japan and articles in several academic journals in the field of EFL

EFL

EFL most commonly refers to English as a Foreign Language, see English as a Foreign or Second LanguageEFL may also refer to:In sports:* Eastern Football League , a defunct Scottish football competition...

. He was co-editor of the 1997 authorized international edition of the collected poetry of the major novelist Dame Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch

Dame Iris Murdoch DBE was an Irish-born British author and philosopher, best known for her novels about political and social questions of good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious...

. He had also co-edited, in 1996, Playback and talk show: new Edinburgh crimes, by Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin, OBE, DL , is a Scottish crime writer. His best known books are the Inspector Rebus novels. He has also written several pieces of literary criticism.-Background:He attended Beath High School, Cowdenbeath...

, the first book of Inspector Rebus

Inspector Rebus

The Inspector Rebus books are a series of detective novels by the Scottish author Ian Rankin. The novels, centred on the title character Detective Inspector John Rebus, are mostly based in and around Edinburgh.-Content and style:...

 stories to be published in Japan.

Hullah was born in Ripon

Ripon

Ripon is a cathedral city, market town and successor parish in the Borough of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England, located at the confluence of two streams of the River Ure in the form of the Laver and Skell. The city is noted for its main feature the Ripon Cathedral which is architecturally...

, North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...

, but now lives in Japan. He attended Ripon Grammar School

Ripon Grammar School

Ripon Grammar School is a co-educational, selective, state secondary grammar school and specialist engineering college located in Ripon, North Yorkshire, England...

, and then lived and worked for over a decade as a music and arts journalist in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, Scotland, whilst simultaneously achieving an M.A. (in English Language and Literature) and a Ph.D. (the poetry of Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti

Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems...

) from the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

. Hullah was an active figure in the Edinburgh underground arts and music scene during the 1980s, with one of his many commercially unsuccessful bands, Teenage Dog Orgy, nevertheless hailed as 'legendary' by the New Musical Express. He moved to Japan in 1992 and is currently Associate Professor of British Literature (Poetry) at Meiji Gakuin University

Meiji Gakuin University

is one of the Christian universities in Tokyo and Yokohama which was established in 1863. The Reverend Dr. James Curtis Hepburn was one of the founders and the first president...

, Tokyo.

Writing

And Here's What You Could Have Won, Hullah's award-winning first book-length collection of poetry, attracted critical praise, with reviewers variously noting echoes of W. S. Graham

W. S. Graham

William Sydney Graham was a Scottish poet who is often associated with Dylan Thomas and the neo-romantic group of poets. Graham's poetry was mostly overlooked in his lifetime but, partly due to the support of Harold Pinter, his work has enjoyed a revival in recent years...

, John Ashbery

John Ashbery

John Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery's work still proves controversial...

 and Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti

Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems...

 (about whom Hullah has published several critical essays) in the layered lyrical pieces. His second collection, Let Me Sing My Song (Dionysia

Dionysia

The Dionysia[p] was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the second-most important festival after the Panathenaia...

, 2000) contained more confessional poetry, though retaining the wit and collisions of imagery of earlier work. Unquenched, a slim volume of haiku

Haiku

' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...

in English, illustrated by the Scottish artist Susan Mowatt, was published by Afterdays Press, Scotland, in 2002. 'Age's Bullets' was published in 2006 by Vagabond Press, Sydney, Australia. In August 2011, Word Power Books UK. published 'Homing', a selection of 24 poems by Hullah dealing with loss and recovery, illustrated by Susan Mowatt.

External links

• Reader Autonomy: Language Learners Responding to Literary Texts, ERIC #: ED403779, 1996