A collection of the poetry of John Davies, comprising a selection of 63 poems from five previous collections and 8 new poems, being both satirical and piercing meditations inspired by the poet's experiences of a Welsh steelworks town, a slate mining community and extensive travels in America.

Casgliad o farddoniaeth John Davies yn cynnwys detholiad o 63 o gerddi o bum cyfrol flaenorol ac 8 cerdd newydd, sef myfyrdodau dychanol a threiddgar a ysbrydolwyd gan brofiadau'r bardd mewn tref gwaith dur, cymuned chwareli llechi a theithiau eang yng ngorllewin America.

John Davies has been publishing for over twenty years, making his mark early with the very funny, and much-anthologised, 'How to Write Anglo-Welsh Poetry':

First, apologise for not being able
to speak Welsh. Go on, apologise.

Study R.S. Thomas, he advises; write about 'exile, defeat, hills ... almost anything Welsh and sad', and look, you have a perfect artificial poem! But, in fact, this poet is seriously attracted by all of these things. He does admire R.S., he does regret being unable to speak the language, and he writes a great deal about a landscape where communities have disappeared, chapels are closed, ancient slate quarries are worked out and 'coal slid, stopping / children dead'. Emigration is a part of this problem and he sees parallels between the native Welsh and the native Americans, and writes about his relationship with a brother in the United States. Pollution is another major concern: 'In Port Talbot' describes a dying industrial town, shaken by 'gouts of asthmatic coughing', and several other poems are about the green earth struggling to reassert its power.

Some of the best pieces are from the collection Dirt Roads. 'Footprints' is an elegy for a lost village, choked in conifers, with ferns growing on mantelpieces and traditional paths invisible. 'Lift That' is dramatic and thrilling; the story of an old quarry worker who murders his son-in-law and buries him under a 'green slab'. Green is the colour of life, but can also mean decay, and several poems suggest that very ugly things may be concealed under the new growths.

Even in his earliest work - like 'Sunny Prestatyn', about elderly people who retire to the town he lives in - John Davies is a skilled rhymester. There are two sonnet sequences, both about contemporary Wales, both impressive in their power to shape words. Another set is about carving wooden birds, his hobby. The eight new poems, which are mostly about the superficialities of modern life, seem to me less good than earlier work, but do not spoil what is an excellent book.

Merryn Williams

It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgement should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.

Gellir defnyddio¹r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatâd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.