{"title":"Books by Gwyneth Lewis","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781780377339","title":"First Rain in Paradise","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFirst Rain in Paradise\u003c\/em\u003e is a book about falling. Gwyneth Lewis's highly inventive poems trace an interior landscape carved out by the trauma of childhood emotional abuse through subsequent chronic ill health and towards a hard-won resurrection. These accounts of living in and emerging from the dark wrestle with the angel of language. Suffering does not preclude humour and may, in fact, require it, in poems written from the shadows but committed to the light. This work refuses to keep pain a secret. Shame is a lurking presence. The book opens with 'Spiderings', a gothic horror sequence about the effects of maternal abuse. Then comes a descent into underworlds of debasement and debility. The third, title sequence begins with a 15th-century manuscript depicting the fall of Adam and Eve, the poems presenting a portrait of a drenched, catastrophic landscape, asking how human trauma relates to a fantasy Eden. Gwyneth Lewis has won wide acclaim for her versatile and varied writing across genres, most notably in her award-winning poetry in both English and Welsh. This book shows a deepening of her technical, imaginative and intellectual resources which are challenged and exercised to the full. The poems map uneasy terrains with realism and - most importantly - with joy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'The bracing latest collection from Welsh poet Lewis traces an arc from the trauma of maternal abuse...through aftershocks of chronic illness, self-harm, and shame...to recovery ('I am found'). Her lines both stun and revive, moving between Plathian imagery... and disarming candor ('Underneath, I'm a bit of a sweetie'). The collection radiates hard-won self-possession... Readers will enjoy discovering this writer of extraordinary gifts.' - \u003cem\u003ePublishers Weekly,\u003c\/em\u003e starred review of \u003cem\u003eFirst Rain in Paradise,\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56304243245429,"sku":"9781780377339","price":12.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781780377339_9d9b37d5-ae14-429e-964f-a91b3e2ecf18.jpg?v=1786025388"},{"product_id":"9781852247232","title":"Chaotic Angels","description":"Gwyneth Lewis was made National Poet of Wales in 2005, the first writer to be given the Welsh laureateship. She is a bilingual virtuoso, and has published six other books of poetry, three in each of her two languages. Chaotic Angels brings together the poems from her first three English collections, Parables \u0026amp; Faxes (1995), Zero Gravity (1998) and Keeping Mum (2003). Her modern epic A Hospital Odyssey (Bloodaxe, 2010) and later collection Sparrow Tree (2011) are published separately.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308758249845,"sku":"9781852247232","price":12.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781852247232_f27e07bb-7da0-48dc-ac97-16413b1c4731.jpg?v=1786029641"},{"product_id":"9781915279903","title":"Nightshade Mother","description":"In this extraordinary memoir, Gwyneth Lewis, the inaugural National Poet of Wales, recounts her toxic upbringing at the hands of her controlling, coercive mother. It is a book that Gwyneth has been preparing to write all her life, keeping diaries since childhood. In these journals, she interrogates the emotionally abusive relationship she experienced, in great pain but determined to find a way through.   Nightshade Mother is a book that Gwyneth co-writes with her younger self, an unexpected and life-saving dialogue through time. Metaphors of haunting intensity help her confront what happened to her; quotations from art and literature guide and steady her. This is a book about the power of art, language and, ultimately, about homecoming over a lifetime of exile from herself. It is a profoundly moving and beautiful work; questing, forgiving and loving in its approach.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57685969666421,"sku":"9781915279910","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":56308941095285,"sku":"9781915279903","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781915279910_41692f17-989e-4e19-a6b1-525fb972f346.jpg?v=1792599235"},{"product_id":"poetry-detective","title":"Poetry Detective","description":"From the first National Poet of Wales, a down-to-earth, investigative approach to unraveling the mystery of reading and writing poetryHave you ever thought that poetry is a mystery designed to baffle you or even make you feel inadequate? In Poetry Detective, Gwyneth Lewis helps readers get beyond this misconception—and the paralyzing dread that can go with it—by providing straightforward, practical tools for reading and writing poetry with confidence and pleasure. As Lewis shows, becoming a poetry detective can not only demystify poems but also illuminate our lives in profoundly enriching ways.   Lewis presents the reading of a poem as an investigation, not a test of innate brilliance or sensitivity. Readers shouldn’t expect to “get” a poem immediately any more than detectives expect to solve a case the minute they arrive on the crime scene. Instead, Lewis shows how to follow clues such as rhythm, sound, and metaphor to first figure out what’s happening at the most literal level of a poem, from its speaker to its “plot.” Each chapter examines a range of poems, from the classic to the contemporary, and provides writing exercises that help readers develop poems of their own.   Whether you’re a new reader or writer of poetry, or a more experienced reader or poet seeking fresh insight and inspiration, Poetry Detective is an original and compelling guide to this timeless art.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57682584600949,"sku":"9780691179360","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":57680221766005,"sku":"9780691179353","price":55.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-gwyneth-lewis.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}