by Gareth Culshaw (Author and photographer)
Gareth Culshaw’s arrestingly fresh use of language sets every poem alight in this moving collection. Playful, tender, and mournful poems evoke the universal through keen observation of the particular. His contemplative portraits of people and places are unforgettable. Welsh translation and photography add to the lyrical quality of the poetry.
Review
In Some Things That Have Happened So Far, pin-sharp memories of the past co-exist and collide with the present experience. The themes of childhood and age run through the collection, including the moving long poem, ‘Letter to Tom.’ Here are extraordinary poems of ordinary life set in an edgeland landscape where urban streets with their cars and wheelie-bins can lead to wild places ‘inhabited by redwings, fieldfares, and skylarks.’ All this is conveyed in the poet’s characteristically vivid, original, and surreal imagery in which the sound of a clock is like ‘an axe…chopping / the kindling of time’.
- Mary Robinson
About the Author
Gareth Culshaw lives in Wales and writes about topics related to rural and working class. Some Things That Have Happened So Far contains Welsh translation and photographs of the areas he discusses. His first collection, The Miner, was published by FutureCycle in 2018. His poetry has appeared in Limestone, Magma, The Reader, Third Wednesday, London Grip, and elsewhere. He has an MA in Poetry from the University of Manchester. He won the RS Thomas Poetry Competition and was longlisted for the Yaffle Competition.
Publisher: Backlash Press
ISBN: 9781739101619, Poetry
Number of pages: 142
Dimensions: 216 x 40 mm
Weight: 160 g
Language: English
Available from Waterstones and Amazon and wholesale from Gardners UK.