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Secret Life Of A Postman is the first collection of poetry from award winning novelist Lloyd Jones. The book is dedicated to, "the members of AmeriCymru and the Welsh in America".
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About Lloyd Jones
Lloyd Jones is an award-winning novelist in English and Welsh. He lives on the North Wales coast near Bangor.
His first novel, Mr Vogel, (Seren 2005) won the McKitterick first novel award and was shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction. His second novel, Mr Cassini (Seren 2006) won the Wales Book of the Year prize. In 2009, he published his first collection of short stories, My First Colouring Book (Seren). He was chosen to contribute to Seren Books’ acclaimed series reimagining the Mabinogion, the original source of the legendary King Arthur story cycle, with See How They Run (New Stories from the Mabinogion Seren 2012), a retelling of “Manawydan, Son of Llyr”. He published his first Welsh language novel, Y Dwr (Y Lolfa 2010) to critical acclaim. and followed that with Y Daith (Seren 2011). He translated Y Dwr into English as Water (Y Lolfa 2014).
Lloyd Jones is the first person to have walked completely around Wales, a 1,000-mile journey, on foot.
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Poems From 'Secret Life'
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Size matters
For instance we can''t imagine what it''s like
To be Russian, we''ll never know
What it''s like to live in a country
With an unassailable language
And a monumental culture spreading
Across nine time zones,
So much space it drives men mad.
We''ve just the one field in Wales,
Small and green, with a copse of myths
And a boggy bit in the middle;
An apple tree and a pig,
A church and twelve chapels, also
A hut which is home to three anchorites,
Two of them devising the country''s history
Always a little faster than the third can read it;
And there''s always a gang
Drilling for something by the gate,
Forever a promise of gold or maybe
Yet more mud.
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Mawddach Bridge
for Brynley Jenkins
Meet me on the Mawddach in the spring,
When the sapphire tide spins seawards:
Sewin streams on either shore will flee the land
Sucked hellbent to the river’s restless floor.
Meet me on the footbridge [fallopian in the water’s womb,
Childbrace on the chill white waveteeth] –
Come sundrunk when the sea’s draconian whisper
Drowns their hillside hymns, those believers before us.
Easily we will cross our pagan gantry,
Lopsided woodhenge, lollipop sticks impertinent in the sand.
Meet me on a sad day by Dysynni, seditious with longing;
We will muster a bluster of April dog-winds
To shepherd sunshine down Cader Idris
And chase spindrift clouds along the raven ridges,
Through unshakable shadows, vast in the valley’s ravines.
At nightfall when we part [not mournfully]
Arawn will chalk a cross, other-worldly, on our walkway to Annwfn:
Footmarks for actors, cues from a ghost.
In the estuary’s amphitheatre, amphibious
We will face her foothills, blinded by sunset’s footlights.
Stagestruck, we will hear the invisible tribes
With their faint dogs sidle through side doors
Leaving Wales: wind, wood and water to our own devising.
Their shadows will move fleetingly, avoidingly, to another time
When the two of us will meet again, on the bridge at Mawddach.
,,,
A Review By John Good
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If you were a writer of fiction (stories short and long, novels, scripts ac ati), or non-fiction (biography, history, science, learned essays ac ati), you could hide behind the narrative, equations, characters and your own intellect or not, but if you write poetry you can’t. The poet (his life experience/relationships, belief or disbelief system, mood(s), mental state(s), interests/obsessions/politics ac ati) will shyly or brazenly stand more or less trouserless right next to meaning, novelty of thought, metaphor, expression, voice and wordcraft. In other words, poetry is the poet. Having said that, the fascination of the art is in the extraordinary variety and often esoteric if not arcane sensibilities of its more interesting exponents.
But bullpucky or cachu rwtsh aside, if the poet isn’t interesting in her/himself then we can only hope for something like clever metaphor and dispassionate observation. You won’t find any of that in Secret life of a Postman. Dedicated to Ceri and Gaabi and the crew at AmeriCymru – a pro-active, savvy, ex-patriot, Welsh-American dynamo – the author is himself unashamedly visible in his poetry. Don’t get me wrong, and admitting that all art is in part vanity, this is not a look-at–me-I’m-cool kind of collection, I stopped reading those ages ago. The attraction is in the personal honesty and the ever-unexpected stimulus for the verse –the scenario. (Am I allowed to use that word verse in ‘14? There’s rhythm, tempo, agreement of sounds ac ati … yes I think I can.)
Take the opening poem Juggling. A daughter is juggling fruit in a kitchen that sets off a series of quasi-real almost mythical remembrances that circle back, just like the juggling hands and juggled objects themselves, to a maybe never-to-be-realized desire to start juggling or gardening or stonemasonry, and the universal wish to go back, relive selective memories. Is that what the author intended? I don’t know and it doesn’t matter anyway. The first glory of poetry is that whatever truth you get from the poem is yours to keep. Perhaps this is only a personal truth, bringing me to the second glory, which is that the poet may not know what the poem means, having been merely the creator, and anyway, once you show it to others, you are inviting them to imagine, spin a web, take a trip and perhaps even let you know what your poem is really about.
Some selected imaginings:
Moving -- the infrequent freedom of chairs.
A warm and sandy love -- Mediterranean cinematographic myth-real.
Currents -- the dark and painfully real-real.
By now you may have noticed, as I skip through the selection, the range of subject/scenario is broad.
Size matters -- the dimensions of Wales
Secret life of a postman -- the true identity of the work/man.
In a pocket, among those travellers
within me, I found a scrunched up
piece of paper …
Is this what this book is about? At least a major theme? I suspect so.
Pathways -- irrevocable directions.
Odysseus complains about the publicity -- Homeric paparazzi. The collection takes an unusual tack.
Airtime -- lavatory for thinkers.
The black rabbit -- reality creating the metaphor.
Chapter 2 ( Simeon Ellerton, Between a Rock and a Hard Place ) takes us to a fresh and wondrous sequence of did-you-know type of extraordinary, short, factual, prose paragraphs, followed by an entertaining and often humorous poetic gloss; the whole held together with a rare glue.
With Chapter 3, we are back in the individual thought/poem world with Time sadly presenting the oldest and most constant of poetic themes; The look -- voyeuristic envy-lust; Beowulf -- 21 st century mythology; Sacrament (1&2) translations from the Welsh … I think you’re beginning to get the picture: The collection is as intricate as the man who wrote and assembled the word pieces; they are one and the same; a cawl, a lobscouse with accidental ingredients carefully selected and combined from myth, history, dream, hallucination, experience, bias, heritage; many accessible, some edgy, puzzling, some transparent, inevitably metaphoric, ancient and modern and overall, damn well entertaining. I’m left with two thoughts, having finished the collection: Significance often builds nests in exotic trees and, just as the poet can’t hide behind the poem, neither can the reader.
P.S. 4, Requiem, In Memory of my Mother, the last poem sequence, from a purely personal point of view, is the very best of the bunch. You can accompany Mr. Jones as he wanders down the winding lanes of loss that inevitably sets off unexpected flashbacks; sends postcards from the ether that tell us of known yet strangely unfamiliar destinations. All of us, at some time, will have walked those lanes that lead to a new you.
Enjoy Secret life of a Postman. I did .
John Good/Sioni Dda, El Mirage, AZ., Summer ’14.
The US embassy in London has made and put up this absolutely awesome video on youtube, "America's Welsh Heritage" -
So, here's a new trailer for an old book.
The Division of the Damned actually came out in early 2012, so it has somewhat run its course.
However, Thorstruck Press, where I am now, are convinced it still has more to offer.
So they made a new cover and the audiobook is coming out next month, which I'm quite chuffed about actually.
Anyway, here's the new trailer for the book, I hope you enjoy it and please feel free to share it.
Diolch.
Reggie
The last couple of days were spent in zen-like contemplation, practice and refinement. I finished the cat and began working on the chip carving for the stem. I discovered a couple of interesting things. I haven't done much chip carving in the past, because it seemed like such a struggle to get it to look right. I discovered that I just didn't have a knife properly tuned for the work. As I began working on the practice piece I got increasingly frustrated at the way my knife was behaving. I was either having to use much more force than I wanted to, or I was having to make multiple thin cuts to do what most people do in one cut. The sharpness wasn't an issue; the issue was the blade profile. Most chip carving cuts are done with the first 1/8" to 3/16" of the blade. This blade was simply too thick, so I spent about 3 to 4 hours regrinding, sharpening and polishing the blade. I changed the inluded angle of the edge to about 15 degrees or less. I also ground a small swedge on the back of the blade near the tip to decrease the friction of the blade against the wood. I also rounded the back of the blade to make it more comfortable to push against. What a difference! Chip carving changed from a chore to a pleasure in one fell swoop. I still need to make the swedge a little wider and do more polishing on the blade.
Now that things were working the way they should be, I did two styles of chip carving for the stem. The one on the right is an older, more primitive style. It looks rather like laces. The one on the left is what is more commonly seen today. The client chose the one on the left.
This is actor Dominic Monaghan in an interview about John Rhys Davies playing Gimli in "The Lord of the Rings" series -
I love John Rhys Davies in anything, even godawful horrors like "Sabretooth" -
somewhat shamelessly stolen from: http://thestarcrossedlosers.tumblr.com/post/75576352843/oshkeet-throren-dont-mess-with-gimli-they
I've finished with the back of the bowl, pretty much. You probably can't tell the difference, but I can. I'm much happier now. As I work on the inside of the bowl I'll undoubtedly be making small adjustments to the outside, but that's normal. I started on the horse heads and got one almost done. Still have a few minor adjustments to make before I start the next one. I used the Flexcut Detail Knife to do a lot of the horse head. I like Flexcut knives. They have good steel, good heat treatment, hold a good edge a long time, but there is one thing I just can't abide: that slick, lacquer coating they use on the handles. My hands sweat when I carve, so that lacquer makes it seem like I'm holding a piece of ice. Fortunately there is a simple solution: 100-grit sandpaper. The bare wood sticks to my hand like glue. A major improvement.
I've finished both horse heads. For now. I spent most of my carving time today practicing on the chip carving. On different piece of wood! I got the cat the way I wanted it (on the practice piece) and began practicing on the squares below it. (No, you don't get to see that!) Based on what I'm seeing, I MAY need to do a fresh layout on the squares. I'm also playing with the exact angles and order of cuts. More playing needs to be done. After messing with the practice squares for a while, I decided to do the cat head on the spoon. Before I got to the nose and mouth my hands were beginning to tremble enough that I thought I'd better quit and do that tomorrow. It was a struggle to stop, though. "It's only five more little lines. I can do that in my sleep. Just five lines. Come on, you can do it," I said to myself. Fortunately, I noticed that I couldn't even draw the guidelines properly, so, descretion being the better part of valor, I decided to wait until tomorrow.
Big thanks to Shabbey Road Studios, Al Steele and Robert Devereux for contributing to my song "So Into You"; runner up in the 2014 USA 'Song Of The Year' awards yesterday. Very pleased with this
http://writer.songoftheyear.com/darrenparry.htm
I've just found out that some of the judges for the 2014 USA 'Song Of The Year' are some of my musical heroes, such as; Don Henley, Steven Tyler and Phil Collins. Great to know that they have probably heard my song. Also on the panel was Alicia Keys, Lenny Kravitz and Gwen Stefani and music executives from Sony Music, Universal and EMI, among others...cool!
If you haven't heard the song...here's the link:
Darren Parry - "So Into You":
Cafodd fy nghalon ei thorri prynhawn ddoe gyda'r newyddion am Gerallt. Cysga'n dawel bach, mae dy wlad yn ddiolchgar.
AmeriCymru spoke to author Sarah Stevenson about her latest book The Truth Against The World
"Sarah Jamila Stevenson is a writer, artist, graphic designer, introvert, closet geek, enthusiastic eater, struggling blogger, lapsed piano player, household-chore-ignorer and occasional world traveler. Her previous lives include spelling bee nerd, suburban Southern California teenager, Berkeley art student, underappreciated temp, and humor columnist for a video game website.
Throughout said lives, she has acquired numerous skills of questionable usefulness, like intaglio printmaking and Welsh language. She lives in Northern California with her husband, who is also an artist, and two cats with astounding sleep-inducing powers." Read more here...
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Sarah : Diolch, Ceri, for this opportunity to talk about my writing work! The Truth Against the World is described on the book cover as "a transatlantic paranormal mystery that spans generations"—but I personally like to describe it as a ghostly mystery about a family secret. Two teenagers—Wyn (Olwen), a girl in San Francisco, and Gareth, a boy in London—are unexpectedly brought together online and find out they share a strange connection. Was their meeting a coincidence, ghostly intervention, or something more? Both of them have Welsh heritage, and soon, they begin to trace the mystery together, all the way back to a tiny Welsh village and the secrets it has held close for decades.
I hope that''s enough to whet readers'' appetites without giving too much away…
AmeriCymru: What is your connection with Wales?
Sarah: I have to admit first off that I have no idea whether I have Welsh heritage or not! It was something my grandmother always used to say, but we have no idea if it was accurate, and no real way to prove it. We only know for sure that there''s English, Irish, and French Canadian on that side. Having her say it at all, though, did plant a seed in my mind. I suppose I''ve been interested in Welsh language and culture since my first visit to Wales, at age 4! We took a family vacation to the UK and I remember being quite impressed with the castles in Wales, and the green countryside. I returned with my mother when I was 13, and that''s when I first remember encountering the Welsh language and being captivated by it. In college I had the opportunity to take a couple of Welsh language classes, and since then I''ve kept it up on my own, using online resources, and by attending the Cymdeithas Madog Welsh course as often as I can. Because of that, I now have various friends and other connections in Wales, and feel even more strongly attached than ever. (Now I just have to find time and money to visit again…my last trip was in 2000, for the Cymdeithas Madog Cwrs Cymraeg in Carmarthen.)
AmeriCymru: What influenced your decision to write for children/young adults?
Sarah: To be honest, I hadn''t originally thought about writing for young readers when I first began to pursue a career in writing. Actually, my original career plan was to be an illustrator, and I studied art in college as an undergraduate and even did a year of graduate work in printmaking. After being out of school and working for a couple of years, I was doing some freelance writing of humor articles as part of my job at an internet company, IGN.com, and realized how much I''d always enjoyed writing. However, this was the first time I''d ever thought of it as more than just a hobby.
I took an online fiction writing workshop in about 2001 and that was actually when I first began Olwen''s story. At that point, the characters were adults and it was not a YA novel at all. But I only got about 40 pages in before getting stuck. Shortly after that, though, I decided to return to school for creative writing, and during my MFA program at Mills College in Oakland, I took a couple of courses in writing for young adults and realized not only that Olwen''s story would be a perfect young adult novel, but also that I really had a connection with writing for that age group. I did so much reading when I was a teenager—it was the last time I had really read voraciously and indiscriminately. At the same time, I know how difficult it can be to keep teens reading. I relished (and still do!) the idea of being able to convert and keep lifelong readers. On top of that, I feel like YA novels are all about growth and change and coming of age, and I find that an intriguing underlying theme to explore, regardless of genre.
AmeriCymru: Your book "The Latte Rebellion'' won an IPPY Award for Children''s Multicultural Fiction in 2012. Care to tell us more?
Sarah: Here''s a brief tale of drastic contrasts for you! Although The Truth Against the World was my first finished book, The Latte Rebellion was my first PUBLISHED book. Truth, I labored over for years, first as my MFA thesis (at that point entitled The Other Olwen) and then afterward as I repeatedly rewrote it and tried to get it published. The origin story for Latte couldn''t be more different—I started it during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in 2007, and finished the first draft less than 6 months later.
I suppose Latte just came "pouring" out of me partly because of the autobiographical inspiration for it, and partly because it was just a very fun story to write—it''s about students of mixed race/mixed ethnicity who decide to form a club for other students like them and sell t-shirts as a money-making scheme, but of course the scheme careens hilariously out of control. As someone of mixed heritage myself (my father was born in India), it''s not hard to notice that there aren''t many books written about characters dealing with the unique set of issues that come up when you have a family that''s blended in that way, bringing together races and/or cultures. I wanted to write something that incorporated characters of mixed ethnicity, because that''s what I grew up with, but I also wanted to write a story that was entertaining and funny and not "issue-based." The Latte Rebellion is what came out.
AmeriCymru: You also write short stories. Where can our readers go to find them online?
Sarah: I don''t have too many short stories available online at the moment—in fact, this question prompted me to check my own website and I found that most of the links to my online work are no longer active! Surprise. However, I will take that as tacit permission to post some PDFs of those published stories very soon on my website, at www.SarahJamilaStevenson.com
AmeriCymru: What are you reading at the moment? Any recommendations?
Sarah: At the moment, I''m reading a non-fiction book entitled Hubbub: Filth, Noise, and Stench in England by Emily Cockayne. I highly recommend it! It''s a fascinating look at what life was like in English cities in the 1600s and 1700s, based on firsthand writings from the time period. I also recently finished reading the third book in a trilogy by a YA writer friend, Robin LaFevers. The book is Mortal Heart, Book 3 in the His Fair Assassin trilogy, a story of magic, mythology, and political intrigue set in Brittany and France in the Middle Ages. All three books are fantastic, with wonderfully dangerous female heroines.
AmeriCymru: Other interests/hobbies besides writing?
Sarah: Lately I seem to find my free time for other interests dwindling more and more, but of course, when I can, I try to continue pursuing my visual art (drawing, painting, printmaking, bookmaking). I also enjoy cooking (and eating!), traveling, watching BBC shows (just finished Call the Midwife, and I love Doctor Who), listening to music and occasionally playing it (piano, and I''m learning ukulele), and on occasion I have been known to participate in role-playing games.
AmeriCymru: What are you working on at the moment?
Sarah: I''m trying to rewrite a draft of a new book which is part of a two-book set tentatively titled Fuel to the Fire. I like to call it post-post-apocalyptic. (Essentially, it''s a fantasy without any actual magic in it!) Book 1 is called Tinder. It''s set in an imaginary world that relies on water and steam rather than combustion, a few centuries after worldwide disaster has changed the face of the earth. In the stately canal city of Breakwater, a young noblewoman named Chiara is faced with having to undergo an arranged marriage, when all she wants to do with her life is work with technology as an engineer. Meanwhile, a young man, Aden, lives in the poor part of town, scrabbling to pull down enough money from his work as an apothecary''s apprentice so he can pay his dead father''s debts. An irresistible offer of work from a slightly shady individual ends up drawing Aden into a world of thugs, rebels, and guerrillas eager to bring down the noble status quo—and then a shocking, tragic accident brings him and Chiara together. Whether they can stop what they''ve inadvertently helped set into motion is the premise of Book 2.
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?
Sarah: Thank you so much for reading this! For more of my thoughts on books and writing, here are a few more places to find me online:
Blog posts: http://sarahjamilastevenson.com/blog.html
Twitter: @aquafortis
