Review: Clueless Dogs, by Rhian Edwards

A couple of years ago I reviewed Rhian Edwards' tall-lighthouse pamphlet, Parade the Fib, on Rogue Strands. In fact, you can still read it here. 2012, meanwhile, has seen the publication of her first full collection with Seren Books, titled Clueless Dogs.

Clueless Dogs is an extremely good read. The best poems from the pamphlet run through its spine: Gravy and Sheer are excellent pieces, while Marital Visit is an outstanding poem (the book's worth buying for this one slab of brilliance alone!): a female, lyrically-charged concave mirror of the type of material that Hugo Williams invoked in Billy's Rain. Edwards is terrific at portraying doomed human relationships.

The blurb for Clueless Dogs states that she won the John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry 2011-12. Now, I'm not going to get bogged down in the pointless argument of page vs performance. Nevertheless, I do recall sharing a stage with Edwards in London a few years ago. She was compelling, performing her poems such as Marital Visit without recourse to the page. She'd learnt them by heart and was able to engage with the audience by laying open her vulnerability.

I do wonder, however, just whether she is quite so successful with other themes, for reasons I'll try to explain. The very qualities that made the "personal" poems so captivating when performed "live" are also those that pervade her work on other subjects, yet in these cases without the same degree of emotional connection with the audience/reader. Let's take an example: where the circular ending to Marital Visit is devastating in its finality, in other cases the chopping-off of loose ends seems forced, closing instead of opening up beyond the text itself. For instance, here are the final lines from Bridgend:

"...The Samaritans have been lobbying the Vale
for years for a phone box
with a direct dial to a volunteer.
Eventually, the council surrendered and built
the box at the foot of the cliff.

Edwards is offering us an ending that's satisfying at first yet slightly facile on rereading. She's reaching for (and obtaining) an effect on her audience rather than her reader.

Clueless Dogs is not perfect, yet its flaws are intriguing. It shows Edwards reaching out into new themes and exploring how her technique can evolve to deal with them. Let's not forget, however, that it is top-notch when evoking moments, scenes and perspectives on couples that are destined to part. Rhian Edwards has already achieved more than many poets: a new, enlightening view of an old subject. The signs are that there's a lot more to come.

Full collections for Rhian Edwards and Hannah Lowe

Two of the most outstanding poetry pamphlets to be published in the U.K. over the last few years were Rhian Edwards' Parade the Fib (Tall Lighthouse) and Hannah Lowe's The Hitcher (The Rialto). In fact, I wrote extremely positive reviews for them on Rogue Strands.

The latest good news is that these poets have deservedly found excellent publishers for their first full collections. Rhian Edwards is bringing out Clueless Dogs with Seren this May, while Bloodaxe are publishing Hannah Lowe's Chick in 2013. I very much look forward to getting hold of a copy of both books and reviewing them here in due course.

Review: Parade The Fib, by Rhian Edwards

I first encountered Rhian Edwards when we both read at a London Magazine launch a couple of years ago. She read her poems from memory with great intensity of feeling and rhythm yet managing to dodge theatricality. I later spotted some of her work in Stand and then got hold of a copy of Parade The Fib, her Tall Lighthouse pamphlet.

Parade The Fib might only contain fourteen pages, but it's packed with verve. Critical shorthand might put these down as "relationship" poems. However, that term doesn't do them justice...

"She wears her head
on the bone of her shoulder,
wraps his cold hand
in the skin of her own."

These pieces evoke scenes superbly, none better than in Marital Visit, the pamphlet's final piece. A slow-burning poem that defies quotation, it underlines the talent on show here.

Despite the publisher's references in the blurb to an "un-English sound" and "Celtic bass-line", Edwards' poetry relishes the music of British English with a delicate ear for its rhythms of speech, lyrically compacted. What's more, her treatment of the subject matter gives an implict nod towards Hugo Williams and Billy's Rain.

Once or twice, Edwards' linguistic drive and lack of inhibition lead to slips, like a rich sauce smothering a delicious steak...

"Tongues, once swaggered
with muscles of mirth, now flap
at the table, starved of all rapture".

Nevertheless, the overall impression is excellent: this is poetry in a contemporary idiom, dealing with relationships in a way that discovers them afresh. Poetic ambition and accessibility coexist in Parade The Fib.

I'll be intrigued to see how Rhian Edwards' work develops over the coming years. Will she sustain this intensity of tone and themes through a full collection or will she extend and deepen her range? Either way, she's a poet who's sure to find acclaim.