Singing Bass - Couverture souple

White, Landeg

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1905762747 ISBN 13 : 9781905762743

Editeur : Parthian Books, 2009

Synopsis

Book by White Landeg

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

"The poems are unflaggingly good, with an audenesque ease of utterance overlaying anger, and a sensual vividness that has one wiping the dust from the eyes." The Observer "...accessible...evocative of place" Times Literary Supplement "White addresses fundamental issues unflinchingly." The Big Issue "A talent for vivid description...compelling in its evocation" Carrie Etter, New Welsh Review --The Observer

Singing Bass, Landeg White (Parthian, £7.99) THIS is the eighth collection from the South Wales-born poet who was chief arranger and bass pan player for Trinidad s Camboulays Steel Band in the 1960s. He lives in Portugal now, but admits he intermittently daydreams about miners daughters with a welcome in their hillsides in poems that, at times, seem like letters home to Wales. There s plenty of the ex-pat s conscious Welshness amid wonder at the beauty of the world around him, spiced with insight and wit and cross-cultural sharpness. His Mediterranean lifestyle shines through his bountiful gardening, the markets, festival, the Atlantic gales, the invisible cicadas. This is poetry as celebration of fundamental age-old issues like death, love, language and life itself. He returns to his birthplace in Taffs Well Kunta Kinte, etc to find, as always, that it is not what he expected, that his imagined poem is ruined, but that the valleys village of three shut-down collieries seems to prosper, and there s Welsh lamb and Spanish scampi for lunch at the Anchor. There s an encounter with a librarian in full purdah at the British Library in London and a new outlook on whether or not to go gentle into that good night if you ve reached the age, as White has, when you re no longer in charge. Easy on the eye and ear, cosmopolitan as you d expect from time spent in the West Indies and Africa, and with only occasional inexplicable moments, the poems also deal with the medium itself and the world into which the poems must drop like a stone in a well. White the gardener works this soil like a book , but finds gardening quicker than dealing with publishers and his own publisher observes that poetry doesn t sell, it just evaporates . It makes a distant splash, though, as someone reviews it in a small literary journal. White has learned that there are 120 readers out there,/ and when one comments, shyly,/ the heart s awash with joy. Steve Dube, The Western Mail --The Western Mail

Singing Bass is Landeg White's eighth collection of poems, and it shows the author in fine form, tackling subjects such as love, anger and mortality with an immediacy and veracity that are heart warming. Expansive and internationalist in outlook, these are sensual snippets of linguistic skill that draw the reader in and make you look again at the world with fresh eyes, like all good poetry should. Doug Johnstone, The Big Issue --Doug Johnstone, The Big Issue

Biographie de l'auteur :

Landeg White was born in south Wales and lives in Portugal, having taken in along the way universities in Trinidad, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Zambia and York. His books include studies of VS Naipaul; of Mozambican and Malawian history; and of southern African praise poetry; along with seven collections of poetry including Where the Angolans are Playing Football (Parthian, 2003) and Arab Work Parthian, 2006). He teaches at Portugal s Universidade Aberta (Open University). His translation of Camões s The Lusíads won the TLS translation prize for 1998. His further translation of The Collected Lyric Poems of Luís de Camões has recently appeared from Princeton University Press

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Parthian Books
• Date d'édition: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1905762747
• ISBN 13: 9781905762743
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 69