New Selected Poems

New Selected Poems is a poet’s choice of over thirty years’ work. Minhinnick’s poetry explores the complexities of belonging in the world. It is rooted in the rich particularity of industrial south Wales and the Welsh seaside resort in which he now lives, but its scope is global. New Selected Poems includes ‘An Opera in Baghdad’ as well as translations from six modern Welsh language poets; it mourns the ancient, savaged landscape of Iraq and listens to primeval echoes in the Welsh landscape; it celebrates the rhythms of the Americas. For Minhinnick, people, relationships and landscapes interconnect. The poetry that is true to that world is both lyrical and highly political. Cover photograph © Robert Minhinnick

Table of Contents:
from A Thread in the Maze (1978) Sap Short Wave A Live Tradition Garlic Mustard, from Herbals Dawn: Cwrt y Felin 1921: The Grandfather’s Story from Native Ground (1979) Ways of Learning The Children J.P. Llangewydd The Drinking Art Insomnia Sker from Life Sentences (1983) Rhys Driving in Fog Catching My Breath An Address On the Headland Burmese Tales from The Dinosaur Park (1985) The Dinosaur Park On the Llyn Fawr Hoard in the National Museum of Wales Dock Eelers The Resort Picking from Breaking Down from The Looters (1989) The Looters ‘What’s the Point of Being Timid when the House is Falling Down?’ The Mansion Epilogue from Fairground Music Men In the Watchtower Looking for Arthur from Hey Fatman (1994) Homework Daisy at the Court A History of Dunraven Hey Fatman Reunion Street Listening to History The Swimming Lesson from After the Hurricane (2002) The Bombing of Baghdad as seen from an Electrical Goods Shop Twenty-Five Laments for Iraq The Discovery of Radioactivity Carioca Songs for the Lugmen She Drove a ’Seventies Plymouth Neolithic The Porthcawl Preludes From the Rock Pool from The Adulterer’s Tongue (2003) Belly Button Song (from ‘Botwm i’r Botwm Bol’, by Menna Elfyn) Taliesin (from ‘Taliesin’, by Emyr Lewis) Beginning to Forget (from ‘Dechrau’r Anghofio’, by Gwyneth Lewis) Landscape without a Hat (from ‘Tirlun heb Het’, by Bobi Jones) A Song about Soup (from ‘Cawl’, by Elin ap Hywel) Automobiles (from ‘Ceir’, by Iwan Llwyd) from King Driftwood (2008) An Opera in Baghdad The Hourglass La Otra Orilla Eavesdropping The Castaway The Saint of Tusker Rock The Fox in the National Museum of Wales Index of Titles and First Lines

About the Author :
Robert Minhinnick’s recent publications include the novels, Sea Holly (2007) and Limestone Man (2015)from Seren and Fairground Music: the World of Porthcawl Funfair (Gomer, 2010). He edited the international quarterly, Poetry Wales, 1997 – 2008, and received a major Creative Wales award in 2008 to write a collection of short stories about refugees, The Keys of Babylon (Seren, 2011). His poems have twice won the Forward Prize for ‘best individual poem’ and his essays have twice won Wales Book of the Year. An established environmentalist, he is joint founder of Friends of the Earth Cymru, 1984, and the charity, Sustainable Wales, founded 1997, for which he is a special advisor. A film, Diary of the Last Man made by Park6 Productions, is released in 2017.

Review :
'Robert Minhinnick is the leading Welsh poet of his generation' - Sunday Times 'There is something imposing in the way he makes his chosen locale, the strand of Porthcawl, feel like the edge of the world, on which wash up echoes of world politics and broad sweeps of history.' - Philip Gross, Poetry London 'Minhinnick 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 London 'Minhinnick is a poet of the moment...his best work takes you and places you slap bang in the middle of an experience. Like a mini tardis.' - The Big Issue 'Biodiversity is at the heart of what he writes about, backed up by a knowledge of archaeology and geology. He is now entering his mature phase and is already one of our most accomplished poets.' - The Western Mail