Catulla Et Al

Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description

Casgliad o gerddi sy'n dangos ôl dylanwad y bardd Lladin, Catullus (c. 84CC - c. 54CC). Ond yn wahanol i'r gŵr ifanc hwnnw, gwraig sy'n canu cerddi yn y cyfnod modern a geir yn y gyfrol hon.

Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description

Catulla et al summons up the sensual and scandalous spirit of the Latin poet Catullus - his lyricism, diatribe and bawdy - by turns wrenching, cynical and outrageous. But whereas the Roman love chronicler is a young man about town, Tiffany Atkinson's Catulla is a free-thinking female confronting modern mores with both ambivalence and uneasy embarrassment.

Dosbarthu

Byddwn yn dosbarthu eitemau sydd mewn stoc o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith, fel arfer drwy Royal Mail Tracked 48. Ar gyfer archebion o flaen llaw, byddwn yn dosbarthu’r eitem o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith ar ôl ei derbyn gan ein cyflenwr.

Dispatch

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Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review

The concept of Catulla Et Al really caught my attention. Anybody familiar with the rather debauched records of the deshabille of Rome as recorded by Catullus, will be intrigued by Atkinson’s premise: to rework the poems under the modern gaze. I had intended to make notes as I read through the book so that I could fully qualify (to you) whether or not I felt Atkinson’s experiment had been successful but I became too involved in the actual reading of the book and failed at executing my own task. This I think, speaks for itself. I’ll admit to you at this juncture that this is by far my favourite release of the year. Why? Well, the language hums with a brave modernity for one thing ‘See / how I’ve been flossing on the diamante / thongs of starlets, *flash*.’ Atkinson’s inclusion of social networking punctuation could have been cloying, too try-hard avant-garde. However, within Catulla Et Al , Atkinson deploys these motifs sparingly, surprisingly, reminding the reader that her poems were born in this irrationally hyper-linked world. It provides a beautiful juxtaposition against the source tales penned by Catullus. I like Atkinson’s measured restraint too. It could be all too easy to over-indulge the base and voyeuristic instincts that drives a reader to Catulla-shaped material. What happens instead is that the reader is rewarded with the intimacy of relationships that resembles, acutely, real life. One of my favourite stanzas (of ‘Hymen Hymenaeus’) reads: One for the boy awkward with books and violin case Oh that bobtail of white knicker in the sports hall how it flickers just behind his closed eyes Which is beautifully accurate. Somewhere out there, there is a statistic that would tell me exactly what percentage of our relationships happen in our heads. I’m pretty sure the figure would be high. Atkinson capitalises on recognising these subtle truths and scoring them into vignettes of emotional legitimacy. ‘Bad karaoke’ is another favourite and one that also plays to this particular strength. The narrator finds herself in a Travelodge in Kilmarnock on the eve of a friend’s wedding. ‘Shy as a tree- / frog in my patterned dress’ all day, but the night unloosens her and aided by alcohol, she finds herself belting out Tom Jones to the anaglypta. It is disarmingly familiar (perhaps I give too much of myself away here). Sometimes this lucidity finds form in a one liner ‘And kitchens are duplicitous - / the news is full of cutlery.’ Sometimes it underpins a whole poem – the oppression of the floods in ‘Rain’ is particularly resonant at the time of writing this review (directly after the worst floods that west Wales has suffered this century)! The poet’s sharpness is her winning attribute. Lines like ‘I / must hear how you leave women / fired like bows in hotel rooms’ and ‘the mountains kick a moon out’ are seductive and immersive. As I said, I didn’t stop to take notes.