Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru
Goliat
Goliat
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Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description
Cyfrol o gerddi hardd a deallus yn cynnig hanesion gafaelgar am fyd brau ar ddibyn argyfwng hinsawdd. Ceir ynddynt ddelweddaeth fyw ac ymdeimlad dwfn o hanes, ac maent yn archwilio harddwch digymar bywyd gwyllt, a'r difrod enbyd y gall dyn beri i'w gyd-ddyn ac i'r ddaear.
Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description
An intelligent and beautiful book, Goliat offers absorbing stories of a precarious world on the brink of climate emergency. Employing startling imagery and a deep sense of history, these poems explore the irreplaceable beauty of a wild world, and the terrible damage that humans might do to each other and the earth.
Manylion y cynnyrch / Product details
- ISBN 13
- 9781781726563
- Gwales Code
- gwales.com.9781781726563
- Gwerthwr / Vendor
- Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru
- Long Title
- Goliat
- Awdur / Author
- Hooson, Rhiannon
- Current Price ex VAT
- £9.99
- Current Price inc VAT
- £9.99
- Availability Status (EN)
- Available
- Availability Status (CY)
- Ar gael
- Dyddiad cyhoeddi / Publication Date
- 2022-10-09
- Cyhoeddwr / Publisher
- Seren
- Media Type (EN)
- Paperback / softback
- Media Type (CY)
- Clawr meddal
- Pages
- 72 pages
- Size
- 138 × 216 mm; depth 6 mm
- Language Code
- English
- Categori / Category
- CY: Barddoniaeth (yn Saesneg) | EN: Poetry (in English)
- Is-gategori / Subcategory
- CY: Beirdd Unigol (yn Saesneg) | EN: Individual Poets (in English)
Bywgraffiad yr Awdur / Author Biography
Dr Rhiannon Hooson is a Welsh poet and author. She has won major awards for her work, including an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors, and her first book, The Other City , was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year award. The judges described The Other City as “Stunning... at a pitch of achievement many of us won't reach across a career.” She has performed at literature festivals across the UK, and her work has been featured in the Guardian , Magma and Poetry Wales among others. In the last few years, she has been a Literature Wales bursary recipient, a Hay Festival Writer at Work, poetry editor of Creative Countryside magazine, and the judge of the PENfro festival poetry competition. She has a PhD in poetry from the University of Lancaster, and spent time living and working in Cumbria and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, before settling in the Welsh marches, where she is an experienced workshop leader and creative mentor. During the Covid crisis she established a ‘creative cabin fever’ initiative with a series of daily writing prompts for those in lockdown.
Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review
Goliat is the latest book of poetry from Rhiannon Hooson. Her first collection, 2017’s The Other City , was shortlisted for that year’s Wales Book of the Year. Hooson is a poet with real talent and a confident and distinctive voice. Whether i>Goliat makes its way to this year’s shortlist is yet to be seen, but this is a collection, published by the ever-consistent and reliable Seren, that deserves wide recognition. Throughout Goliat , Hooson happily swings between opposing themes and tones to leave the reader dizzied somewhere in the grey area between sides. She can be both serious and earnest, while pages later be funny and frivolous. Similarly, she often writes as if rooted in tradition and mythology, while in other pieces dropping in contemporary references. The overall impact of this is to be both unnerved and comforted at once, and to find oneself in a space that defies categorisation. Hers is a unique talent. The natural world is a major focus for many of these poems, but mankind and its impact on nature are never far away. In ‘How the Oak Tree Survived the Ice Age’, the power of time and nature is beautifully outlined before our narrator, a girl, is finally introduced: ‘I am seven. […] I have not yet realised the world / would be better without us.’ On the opposite page, this message is reinforced by ‘Everything is Solved in November’ painting a picture of a destructive modern bonfire. Mankind’s relationship with nature recurs elsewhere. To similar effect, the sea and the natural world come side by side with medical imagery. In both ‘Pilgrimage’ and ‘7th Nerve’, the sea and medical themes combine, resulting in a strange synchronicity. The healing powers of nature and the power of the sea, rolled up together with the man-made and scientific, lead the reader to another of the dizzying grey areas Hooson is so familiar with. Alongside nature, themes of art and artists feature heavily in this collection. The work of other artists (Van Gogh, Sharon Hall Shipp, Clive Hicks-Jenkins) inspire a number of poems. At her most amusing, in ‘Travelling Europe with Brienne of Tarth Instead of You’, Hooson even references a character from George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones fantasy world. ‘Even in the long lines outside the Basilica she kept her sword sheathed, only chinking an inch of steel outside the Cafe Florian, where the surcharge was quickly lowered.’ 'Full Moon on Fish Street’ is a sequence of poems in the midst of this collection that really focus on the artist and art. The poems here give snapshot insights into a fictional artist, her muse, and the natural world around her. Previously published as a short pamphlet by Beautiful Dragons Press, ‘Full Moon on Fish Street’ is a character-led portrait of an artist and the way she, the fictional Aubrey, relates to her Cornish environs and her muse, Elizabeth Kidd. It’s a brilliant sequence on its own that is worthy of revisiting. Goliat is a must for poetry fans. It is smart, funny, serious, and creates a world of its own.
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