The Book of Ystwyth: Six poets on the art of Clive Hicks-Jenkins

Dave Bonta
Callum James
Andrea Selch
Catriona Urquhart
Damian Walford Davies
Marly Youmans

ISBN 978-0-932112-89-7

Carolina Wren Press (USA), Grey Mare Press (UK), in association with Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru/National Library of Wales
Format: paperback with fold-in covers, 215x138 mm, 96 pages
Language: English
96 pages
35 pictures, printed in full colour

Stories of saints and beasts, dark worlds of folk tradition, inanimate objects as actors on a stage, other-worldly landscapes – all these tumble from the drawings and paintings of Clive Hicks-Jenkins, who has been described by Simon Callow as ‘one of the most individual and complete artists of our time’. Over the past dozen years, many writers have been prompted to give word to the unspoken narratives in Hicks-Jenkins’ images.

Solitude is a burrow
into which you fold yourself
like a letter into an envelope
stamped Return to Sender.
—Dave Bonta, ‘The Grave Dug by Beasts’

This beautifully produced poetry book offers twenty-seven poems, many published here for the first time, placed alongside 35 images that inspired them or reflect them, printed in full colour throughout. The poems are by six insightful writers: three American and three British; three women and three men. Experiencing these images and poems together will take readers on imaginative journeys of their own, reflecting on the rich themes running through the pairings.

Author and artist biographies

DAVE BONTA lives in western Pennsylvania. He is co-editor of the online literary magazine Qarrtsiluni. His first collection of poems was published by Phoenicia, Montreal, in 2010.

CALLUM JAMES is a blogger, bookseller, publisher and poet who lives in Portsmouth on the south coast of England.

ANDREA SELCH is a poet and editor who lives in North Carolina. Her three volumes of poems so far have been published by Carolina Wren Press, Turning Point Books and Th e Cockeyed Press.

CATRIONA URQUHART was brought up in Glasgow and lived in Caerleon, south Wales, until her death in 2005, aged 52. Her book, The Mare’s Tale, was published by The Old Stile Press in 2001.

DAMIAN WALFORD DAVIES teaches English and Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University. His first full volume of poems was published by Seren in 2009 and his second is due in 2012.

MARLY YOUMANS is a poet and novelist in New York State. Her poems have been published by Mercer University Press and Louisiana State University Press; two more books are forthcoming.

CLIVE HICKS-JENKINS was born in Newport, south Wales in 1951. He was an actor, dancer, choreographer, director and stage designer for the fi rst half of his career, but since the 1990s he has become known as, in the words of Robert Macdonald, ‘one of the most powerful figurative painters in Wales’. His work is now held in all the principal public collections in Wales and his artist’s books are in libraries worldwide. A monograph on his work, Clive Hicks-Jenkins, was published by Lund Humphries (London, 2011). He lives and works in the Ystwyth Valley.