Porthcawl Rock Club perform on Seafront

Porthcawl Rock Club perform on Seafront
Originally uploaded by Mooganic.

Clueless Dogs by Rhian Edwards

Rhian Edwards is the winner of the 2011 John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry and Audience Prize 2011“An astounding Welsh poet with performances that get you in the emotional gut…” – Ian McMillan on The Verb, Radio 3.Clueless Dogs is the first collection of poetry by Rhian Edwards. Already a noted performer of both her songs and poetry, this book confirms her startling talent.Poems like ‘The Welshman Who Couldn’t Sing’ chronicle a fraught childhood in Bridgend, south Wales, where the sensitive child escapes through imaginative games of ‘Playing Dead’ and ‘Broken Lifeboat’. Full of verve and humour, with a spiky syntax featuring hard-edged consonants, her language has a winning honesty and intensity. Later poems chronicle teenage lusts, student rivalries, damaged peers and tense situations. Although the author doesn’t flinch from ruthless depictions in which we are often implicated by her use of the second person ‘You’, there is an underlying sweetness, an elegiac thread most evident in the poems of maturity, like ‘Back to Bed’ ,’Safe’ ,’The Wrong Season’ full of both the sensual rapture of love and a clear-eyed realization of its inevitable disappointments. Witness the poet in performance and it is impossible not to hear her distinctive tones when reading her work. Clueless Dogs is a brave and beautiful first book.

Tools for Self Reliance 20120307_147

Tools for Self Reliance 20120307_147
Originally uploaded by Mooganic.