Books I recommend

Here's a place to learn about other authors whose work I've read and enjoyed.
Please feel free to send me your work for review, or share any reviews on my page. 

Land of Change: Stories of Struggle and solidarity from Wales,
edited by Dr Gemma June Howell

Land of Change: Stories of Struggle and Solidarity from Wales is an anthology celebrating Welsh working class writing and culture. But it is so much more than that. It’s a vivid snapshot of the world we are living in, with all its struggles and triumphs, and a clarion call to those in positions of power to hear the voices of the under-represented, under-privileged and marginalised.

There are seventy-nine contributions, each with their own distinct cultural and lived experiences who share a connection with Wales. The book contains reflections on lived experiences that include racism, gender, activism and wealth inequality. There are recollections of past events such as the 1980s miners strike and, more recently, Brexit, the Me Too movement and Black Lives Matter. The overall message , however, is far from pessimistic but celebratory of the power of collective action to effect change, a challenge summed up in Gwenno Dyfydd’s song which concludes the book:

‘”Don’t give up hoping…
Don’t despair
The winds of change are blowing
And a gale is on its way.”

Land of Change: Stories of Solidarity and Struggle from Wales is published by Culture Matters. It is available at www.culturematters.org.uk      

Under The Raging Moon (one night with Dylan Thomas in Greenwich Village, New York) A Drama in Four Acts by Peter Thabit Jones

There have been many books written about Dylan Thomas, but few have dared try to capture the character of Wales’s best-known bard. This book, a play in four acts, sets out to do exactly that. The action takes place on October 1953, the night before Dylan’s untimely death. In an imagined scenario, Dylan has just been kicked out of a taxi by his disgruntled lover Liz Reitell and stops off at a series of bars, ending with The White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village. Along the way, he chats with local characters and shares his views on, amongst other things, parenthood, money and death.

Attempting to capture Dylan Thomas in dialogue is a brave feat – especially given his fame and the number of myths surrounding the man. But Peter Thabit Jones does a good job of depicting the Welsh poet as both a skilled wordsmith and raconteur who is at the same time vulnerable and, at times, quite self-deprecating. There are parts of the dialogue I recognised as being ‘Dylanesque’ from his letters – such as Dylan’s description of Laugharne with its ‘Christmas cracker of characters’. Others, such as the discussion on wealth, take their inspiration from what is known of Dylan’s background, in particular his friendship with the ‘communist grocer’ Bert Trick. The deeper conversations are interspersed with moments of levity. There’s a hilarious incident where the increasingly tipsy poet dances with another man’s wife and ends up spreadeagled on the floor – pure Dylan slapstick humour.

Does the play succeed in a realistic portrayal of Dylan Thomas the person, not just Dylan the poet? Without a time machine, we’ll never know, but it certainly fitted with what I imagine must have been the character of a man who could be both genius and clown by turns (and sometimes both at once!)

Under The Raging Moon by Peter Thabit Jones is published by Cross Cultural Communications and The Seventh Quarry Press. 

‘The Ear of Eternity’ by Xavier Panades I Blas

Xavier Panades i Blas, a Catalan-born poet now living in Wales, is passionate about two things: The first is his Catalan language and culture. The second is his writing, which comes from deep within the heart. His live poetry performances are vivid, unforgettable. He inhabits his words with a power that is impassioned, almost vehement. So I was interested to see how well this passion would translate onto the page.

‘The Ear of Eternity’ is his first collection, exploring the world of the Catalonian exile, where themes of the environment, Catalan identity, time, music and belonging mix with intensely personal experiences and wider political reflections. The book is published in Catalan with translations into English. 

Exile and identity form an underlying theme of the collection, starting with the powerful ‘Let Me Choose Who I Am’, which, in a sense defines the whole collection. But this sense of otherness or separation extends beyond languages and borders. For the poetic voice itself is also that of intuitive observer, the otherworldly presence looking on and commenting on a world where it doesn’t quite fit. There is a sense of frustration, a longing to escape the mundane, to soar for freedom, as expressed powerfully in ‘Song for Birds’:

‘I don’t want to rot my brains mulling
on mortgages, family and pensions
That cut short my tiny eternity.
I want to be free as a bird,
Feel while doing nothing,
Hope while listening.’

The Ear of Eternity is a collection where the personal and political meet without division or delineation, both acutely intimate and universal. Often the rhythm of the poems feels elegiac or song-like, as for instance in the repeated refrain of Eternity: ‘We’re hiding it forever, between dreams and vices. ‘But Xavier’s style can also be angry and bombastic, or quietly philosophical. One of my favourite poems in the collection is the simple yet profound ‘Teachers’, which says so much in just a few simple verses, and ought to be sent to every teacher as an appreciation of their art.

It is rare to find a book where the poems and their translations carry equal weight, but I found this to be the case here. There were a few instances where the translated words brought me up short (‘killing ourselves with cucumbers’ in ‘Let Me Choose Who I Am’, for example), only to realise that this element of surprise was exactly what the writer had intended. In fact, the mixing of unusual or unexpected images seems an important part of Xavier’s art, tripping the reader into finding new avenues of meaning behind familiar phrases.

Overall, I found this to be a stimulating and enjoyable collection. There are many poems I have found myself going back to multiple times, with phrases that lodge in the head and demand further reflection, such as the wonderful line from ‘The Other Catalans’: ‘we cry for our brothers killed by the arms of your soldiers to steal the black oil – the soul of the darkness’. These are not dry, dusty academic poems to be read once then placed on a shelf and admired. These are poems to be lived, breathed and inhabited. Or, as the author himself says in his introduction, to be read ‘as if you were crying tears from the conscious ocean’. Heartfelt, at times bitter, at others exultant, this is a voice that connects viscerally with the reader, transcending the time and geography in which it was written. I shall look forward to reading more.