The Mallarmé Poems — Matthew Jarvis
ISBN: 9781788640671
£4.99
The Mallarmé Poems introduces a vibrant and exciting new voice in Welsh poetry. More than anything, I am struck by the way in which these poems are alive: through these black marks on the page, a skilful management of form and a riotous music which is very much his own. The author conjures, in poem after poem, a person who’s suddenly standing there next to you, breathing down your neck, talking insistently in your ear. Whether the poems’ subjects are world-weariness or games of cards, the stink of cities or the sound of footsteps, they are always wonderfully engaged with the dance and the party that language can be. The work of writers like Alan Gillis and Glyn Maxwell comes to mind and, if it is true that the best poems often give us an irrepressible personality, The Mallarmé Poems gives us an unforgettable person, talking to us, now, leaping from these pages into our lives.
Jonathan Edwards
Author biography
Professor Matthew Jarvis has written two monographs on the English-language poetry of Wales — Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry (2008) and Ruth Bidgood (2012), both published by the University of Wales Press — as well as numerous essays and reviews. He has co-edited special issues of the journals Green Letters and the International Journal of Welsh Writing in English, and is currently co-editor of the International Journal of Welsh Writing in English. The Mallarmé Poems is his debut poetry pamphlet, He is Chair of the Poetry Wales Committee and co-Chair of the Association for Welsh Writing in English. He has recently edited a volume of essays, Devolutionary Readings: English-Language Poetry and Contemporary Wales, published by Peter Lang. He is the Anthony Dyson Fellow in Poetry at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
Matt also edited the Cinnamon Press anthology Wired to the Dynamo, essays and poems in honour of John Barnie.