Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru
Love Songs of Carbon
Love Songs of Carbon
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Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description
Dyma ddeunawfed gyfrol o gerddi Philip Gross, sy'n gasgliad o gerddi serch i unigolyn ac i'r corff dynol, hynd yn oed pan fo'r corff hwnnw yn wynebu dadfeiliad. Enillydd gwobr farddoniaeth Roland Mathias yng nghystadleuaeth Llyfr y Flwyddyn 2016.
Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description
Love Songs of Carbon is Philip Gross's eighteenth book of poetry, and is a coming of age volume inhabiting the ageing body with a confident, inventive curiosity. These are love poems, both to the person and to the body itself, even as - especially as - it faces entropy and decay. Winner of the Roland Mathias Poetry Award in the 2016 Book of the Year competition.
Manylion y cynnyrch / Product details
- ISBN 13
- 9781780372587
- Gwales Code
- gwales.com.9781780372587
- Gwerthwr / Vendor
- Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru
- Long Title
- Love Songs of Carbon
- Awdur / Author
- Gross, Philip
- Current Price ex VAT
- £9.95
- Current Price inc VAT
- £9.95
- Availability Status (EN)
- Available
- Availability Status (CY)
- Ar gael
- Dyddiad cyhoeddi / Publication Date
- 2016-05-20
- Cyhoeddwr / Publisher
- Bloodaxe Books Ltd.
- Media Type (EN)
- Paperback / softback
- Media Type (CY)
- Clawr meddal
- Pages
- 96 pages
- Size
- 1 × 1 mm
- Language Code
- English
- Categori / Category
- CY: Barddoniaeth (yn Saesneg) | EN: Poetry (in English)
- Is-gategori / Subcategory
- CY: Beirdd Unigol (yn Saesneg) | EN: Individual Poets (in English)
Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review
What does it take to make us appreciate life? The fact of our existence and the miracle of life get taken for granted by us all. Sometimes we need reminding that what we have is a gift. In Love Songs of Carbon , Philip Gross does just that, highlighting the beauty of the present and the joy of life through his carefully structured, rich and complex poetry. This, his eighteenth book of poetry, is a slim but powerful collection to be savoured. Love Songs of Carbon is not what you’d consider typically life-affirming. Meditations on roses and odes to the laughter of children are distinctly lacking, instead replaced by poems about mould, ageing, death and the slow yet speedy passing of time. In the hands of a lesser poet this might be the kind of subject matter to bring about a wallowing in darkness and the morbid, but Gross uses these themes to shed light on the opposite. In ‘Mould Music’, Gross writes a love poem to mould, the ‘uninvited guest’ that lives alongside us. Through describing the growth of spores on the Perspex awning of a station, he celebrates life and the fact that what seems to be decay is in fact new life. It brings to mind the age-old adage (attributed to everyone from Cicero to Stephen Hawking), ‘where there’s life, there’s hope’. The powers of nature are huge and we, as humans, are but a small part of it. The smallness and insignificance of human life is a theme that recurs a lot in this collection. Its effect is neither daunting nor depressing, but rather powerfully positive. In ‘Thirty Feet Under’, Gross reflects on the sheer unlikeliness of life. The odds, he explains, are against us. Statistically we should be elsewhere – under the water, thirty feet under – but we’re not. He writes, ‘And yet here we are: you, me. We are.’ It’s a beautiful thought frozen in a moment of reflection. ‘A Walk Across a Field’ and ‘A Pump in Africa’, though very different poems, have the same effect of freeze-framing a single moment. Gross’s ability to focus on a single memory has the same effect as his detailed description of a moulding Perspex roof. His focus highlights the immensity of time and the beauty of life. In ‘A Walk Across a Field’, he shares the memory of a challenging winter day, but closes by actively declaring that he’s making a memory. This right here, he implies, is worth remembering. This single moment is as far away as can be from ‘A Pump in Africa’, in which the moment a pump flows with water for the first time is captured in still reflection, but the effect is the same. Life is miraculous, let’s remember. The carbon of the collection’s title comes up more than once, and is a motif that cleverly ties together the themes of life, our insignificance and the passing of time. The book closes with ‘Thirteen Ways to Fold the Darkness’, a long exploration on death which then closes with the most glorious life-affirming line. Like the rest of this book, it is powerful, smart and so considered. We are carbon. We are nothing. Yet as Gross writes in ‘Thirty Feet Under’, ‘here we are: you, me. We are.’ This collection recently won Gross the Roland Mathias Poetry prize at the Welsh Book of the Year awards. Rightly so. Gross is a poet who should, like life, be celebrated and appreciated.
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