Rishi Dastidar’s poetry has been published by the Financial Times, New Scientist and the BBC, amongst many others. His third collection, Neptune’s Projects (Nine Arches Press), was longlisted for the Laurel Prize, and a poem from it was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2024. He is also editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Nine Arches Press), and co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (Corsair). He reviews poetry for The Guardian and is chair of Wasafiri. His latest publication is A hobby of mine (Broken Sleep Books).
My publisher says: “In A hobby of mine, Rishi Dastidar’s unrelenting catalogue of cultural observations becomes an absurd and profound portrait of modern life. With a playful spirit and incisive wit, Dastidar examines identity, memory, and the contradictions of everyday existence. He invites us to consider the idiosyncrasies that shape how we navigate a fragmented world, and the hidden dimensions of our routines: repetition becomes revelation – if we pay enough attention.”
I say: it was also a way for me to pay tribute and homage to Joe Brainard, and his wonderful memoir, I remember. Think of my attempt as a way exhausting some current obsessions, in a very George Perec-esque way too.
You can read more about A hobby of mine on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read two extracts from the book.
From A hobby of mine
Extract 1:
A hobby of mine is perverting the course of language.
A hobby of mine is the habit of mining.
A hobby of mine is wondering what the modern equivalent of mining school in nineteenth century Europe is.
A hobby of mine is running away to Rome.
A hobby of mine is imagining living in the south of France with a large of amount of cash that is demanding to be whittled away.
A hobby of mine is telling people why I haven’t launched a Substack yet.
A hobby of mine is deciding which of the endangered heritage crafts I should attempt to pick up.
A hobby of mine is calling the sun my father.
A hobby of mine is sitting in the middle of the road, crying that the passing scooters won’t stop and play with me.
A hobby of mine is wishing I was a cat.
A hobby of mine is knowing I would have been a very good clerk for the East India Company.
A hobby of mine is cultivating an emollient aspect to my personality.
Extract 2:
A hobby of mine is asking: how would David Foster Wallace have written it?
A hobby of mine is attempting to write things the way David Foster Wallace might have done, and failing.
A hobby of mine is buying any second-hand edition of The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth I ever see.
A hobby of mine is Tabasco.
A hobby of mine is predicting when money dies.
A hobby of mine is predicting when Miami sinks.
A hobby of mine is thinking up sports entertainment formats for a post-apocalyptic planet.
A hobby of mine is re-litigating the past until it asks to be taken from the courtroom and hanged until it is dead.
A hobby of mine is saying ‘wait till next year’ even though I know my team will be crap then also.
A hobby of mine is only reading my horoscope when I feel some part of my life is out of control.
A hobby of mine is opening all the cupboards in the kitchen looking for chocolate to eat, even though I know there isn’t any in the house.
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