King Driftwood

The poems in Welsh poet Robert Minhinnick's latest collection were written with a keen awareness of both climate change and the current situation in the Middle East. King Driftwood draws upon the poet's travels in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Argentina, and his 25 years in the environmental movement. Politically-charged poems such as "An Opera in Baghdad" and "An Isotope, Dreaming" address the political and environmental destruction wrought by the ongoing war in Iraq. Moving closer to home, poems such as "The Saint of Tusker Rock" and "The Castaway" are vivid evocations of the historical and modern communities of the Welsh coast, where the poet lives. They introduce us to a cast of memorable characters, from treasure-hunters to drug dealers, from ancient Celtic warriors to eccentrics from the local funfair. A sensitivity to the sonic structures of Welsh language poetry runs throughout the book, lending the poems their vigorous musicality and rhythmic energy.

ISBN 1857549651   Pages 129 ISBN13 9781857549652 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Carcanet Press Ltd   Weight (grammes) 181 Imprint Carcanet Press Ltd   Published in Manchester Format Paperback   Height (mm) 216 Publication date 31 Jul 2008   Width (mm) 135 Library of Congress 2008425873   Spine width (mm) 13 DEWEY 821.914   Academic level General DEWEY edition DC22

		The Fox in the National Museum of Wales		1
		Madonna in Portheawl		3
		The Dolphin		6
		The Cormorant		7
		An Isotope, Dreaming		9
		An Opera in Baghdad		19
		King Driftwood meets the Viper		27
		On Listening to Glenn Gould Play Bach's Goldberg Variations		29
		The Hourglass		39
		La Otra Orilla		48
		King Driftwood and the Vagabond Surf		58
		St. John's Sunflowers		60
		Eavesdropping		64
		The Castaway		65
		At a Riverside Cafe in Uzupis		71
		The Minotaur		73
		In a Fever Hospital		75
		Photographing an Orchid		84
		To Those on the Promontory		88
		Return of the Natives		97
		A Porthcawl Dolphin		100
		The Fairground Scholar		101
		Sageflowers for Charles Saatchi		109
		Paradise		111
		The Weighbridge		113
		The Saint of Tusker Rock		115

Robert Minhinnick is the leading Welsh poet of his generation.The Sunday TimesMinhinnick is one of the few poets who writes about a dockyard or a hedgerow with equal authority...A friend of mine once said that he liked to think of R.S.Thomas as "just being there": outside the media hubbub, steadily producing wonderful poems. Although Minhinnick's considerably younger, and more cosmopolitan in scope, I'd say the same about him.Poetry LondonRobert Minhinnick is a poet of the moment. Not only because he's taken the less glamorous bu more lucrative option of not being a dead poet, but also because his best work takes you and places you slap bang in the middle of an experience. Like a mini tardis.The Big IssueBiodiversity is at the heart of what he writes about, backed up by a knowledge of archeology and geology. He is now entering his mature phase and is already one of our most accomplished poets.Western Mail Magazine

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