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The Edge of Necessary: an Anthology of Welsh Innovative Poetry 1966-2018
John Goodby,
Lyndon Davies
Swansea University Author: John Goodby
Abstract
This anthology, edited by John Goodby and Lyndon Davies, brings together some forty-six innovative / experimental / neo-modernist Welsh poets, ranging from Gerard Casey (b.1918) to Rhea Phillips (b.1989). Its aim is to make available, and give coherence and a critical introduction to, a neglected tr...
| ISBN: | 978-1-9998367-1-9 |
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| Published: |
Llangattock
Boiled String Press and Aquifer Books
2018
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40958 |
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| Abstract: |
This anthology, edited by John Goodby and Lyndon Davies, brings together some forty-six innovative / experimental / neo-modernist Welsh poets, ranging from Gerard Casey (b.1918) to Rhea Phillips (b.1989). Its aim is to make available, and give coherence and a critical introduction to, a neglected tradition of experimental poetry in English by Welsh poets. The editors cover the second phase of such poetry - the first, which laid the basis for Anglo-Welsh poetry as a whole, was that of Dylan Thomas, Glyn Jones, Lynette Roberts and David Jones in the 1930s and 1940s. The current phase has, over the last half century, seen the emergence of a number of major poets, from Heather Dohollau and John James to David Greenslade and Wendy Mulford. However, the significance of these poets, and of innovative poetry in general, has been badly neglected in Wales, where the cultural scene has remained dominated by conservative publishers (such as Seren) and agencies (such as Literature Wales), with the exception of Poetry Wales. Reinforced by the academic discipline of Welsh Writing in English Studies, which emerged in the 1990s. defines the canon, and supplies many of the personnel of the Welsh literary-academic scene, cultural managers have deliberately neglected the innovative in favour of a traditionalist-realist poetry of anecdote and personal feeling which (ironically, given their nationalist aims, derives from English neo-Larkinian and post-Martian styles). This, it is felt, best projects the nation-to-be; formalism and experiment are regarded as tantamount to being 'un-' or 'anti-Welsh'. Exclusions are often drawn on the basis of spurious residential and / or birth criteria, with one or two dissidents - currently Peter Finch and Zoe Skoulding - tolerated as the exceptions that prove the 'conservative' rule. The Edge of Necessary undermines and challenges this rather cosy scenario by revealing, for the first time, the sheer scope and quality of the innovative poetic tradition in Wales. Many of the poets in it have never been represented in anthologies of Welsh verse, including some of the most significant. In a thorough (5,000-word) Introduction, John Goodby and Lyndon Davies places the recent phase of this poetry in its literary, political and social contexts, linking it to similar movements elsewhere and bringing out the distinctiveness of the Welsh contribution; they makes the case that, far from being a colourful addition to what is generally perceived as Welsh poetry in English, given its explosively modernist origins in Wales the innovative *is* the mainstream. In this sense, this anthology opens up an new area for Welsh Writing in English as a discipline, overturning accepted wisdom and making accessible a vast scholarly project for the future. |
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| Item Description: |
The book is 330 pages. |
| Keywords: |
Wales, innovative poetry, Welsh Writing in English Studies, twentieth century poetry, twenty-first century poetry, experimental poetry, modernism |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |