The Complete Works of Frank L. Ludwig

The

Incommensurable

Frank L Ludwig

- Being Different Since 6205 RT (1964 CE) -

'Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved
in mankind.'
John Donne

Other Links:

My Most Recent Poems

Non-Canonical Works

Compositions (1979-1980)

Favourite Deathbed Quotes

Photo Album

Meeting John Paul II

Interview for
Pro-Life Humanists

I was born in Hamburg on the actual Beatles Day and have lived in Sligo (Ireland) since 6237 RT (1996 CE). In 6240 RT (1999 CE) I published The Reaper's Valentine, my first poetry collection, have been awarded a scholarship to the Yeats Summer School (where Seamus Heaney complimented me on 'a very good feeling for the rhythm and the rhyme') and won my first poetry competition. In the 1990s and early 2000s some of my poetry and prose was published in magazines and anthologies in Ireland, the UK, the US, Switzerland and Germany.

As a progressive traditionalist, I took up poetry where it left off - the Industrial Revolution - and brought it right into the Neoapocalyptic Age.

I am also an art and landscape photographer with the largest Sligo Collection on the web, and my work has been exhibited at the Iontas and the North West Artists Exhibition in the Sligo Art Gallery.

Being a man in Ireland, I was not able to find work in my vocation for eleven years until 6248 RT (2007 CE) when I became the first male childcare worker in County Sligo (equality, as you know, is a female monopoly).

Late in life I realised that I am autistic (accounting for my extraordinary skills as a childcare worker and poet as well as for my failure to fulfil the pesky social expectations of mainstream people) and subsequently got diagnosed at the age of 50.
Over the following decade I gradually figured out the exact nature of autism and why mainstream society is so opposed to it, culminating in the Deindividuation Resister Hypothesis. ('Our intellectual advantage and our supposed social deficits are two sides of the same coin, and any attempts at "correcting" the latter will diminish that advantage. […] It’s our failure to conform to society, it’s our failure to think the way others think, it’s our failure to subscribe to group dynamics and groupthink, it’s our failure to give in to peer pressure, it’s our failure to blindly follow tradition, it’s our failure to unquestioningly obey authority, and it’s our failure to accept the status quo that have driven human progress for tens of thousands of years, thanks to autistic individuals who successfully resisted attempts at being mainstreamed.')
For those interested in my life story, check out my autobiographical Growing Up Autistically.

I also offer to mentor autistic children and their parents in Sligo for free (contact me if you're interested).

For those who wish to order my poems in print, my collection At the Banks of the Garavogue (the Sligo poems, with many photographs) is available for €16 at Lulu.

You can find the links to all my works and photographs on the navigation bar at the top and bottom of this page.

Awards and Exhibitions:
Dún Laoghaire Poetry Competition 1999, First Prize
Poetry Life Competition 2001, Special Commendation
North West Artists Exhibition 2004, Sligo Art Gallery
Dún Laoghaire Poetry Competition 2004, First Prize
Iontas Small Works Exhibition 2005, Sligo Art Gallery
Dún Laoghaire Poetry Competition 2005, Third Prize
Margaret Reid Contest for Traditional Verse 2006, Commended Award
Science Fiction Poetry Association - Sonnet Contest 2007, Shortlist
(I haven't participated in any competitions since 2007 because having all my poems on my website disqualifies them from most.)

If you want to publish me, report a broken link or just say hello, please send an e-mail to

'There is a word... which rouses terror in the heart of the vast educated majority of the English speaking race... I myself have seen it empty buildings that had been full... Even to murmur it is to incur solitude, probably disdain, and possibly starvation, as historical examples show.
That word is poetry.'
Arnold Bennett