The poems in Vuyelwa Carlin's new collection show the richness of diction and the piercing intensity of image that we have come to expect from this distinctive writer.
The book opens with the long 'To You a Son, Wordless and Fair' that chronicles the loving and sometimes stormy relationship of a parent and a handicapped child. Other work in this section focuses on characteristic themes based on landscapes, myths and scenes from Shropshire history.
Section Two is entirely devoted to the series 'How We Dream of the Dead' and fully explores death, its rituals, and what follows, both for the dead and those that are left behind.
The final part of the book, 'Songs of Alfred', is a moving set of poems based on the life of King Alfred, who, after four of his brothers, reigned in ninth century Britain.
Vuyelwa Carlin was born in South Africa in 1949, brought up in Uganda, and has lived for many years now in Shropshire. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and anthologies in the UK and abroad. She has published three poetry collections to date and has won prizes in both the Cardiff and National Poetry Competitions. She is also a Hawthornden Fellow. For the past five years she as worked as a carer in an EMI (Elderly Mentally Infirm) unit.
The book opens with the long 'To You a Son, Wordless and Fair' that chronicles the loving and sometimes stormy relationship of a parent and a handicapped child. Other work in this section focuses on characteristic themes based on landscapes, myths and scenes from Shropshire history.
Section Two is entirely devoted to the series 'How We Dream of the Dead' and fully explores death, its rituals, and what follows, both for the dead and those that are left behind.
The final part of the book, 'Songs of Alfred', is a moving set of poems based on the life of King Alfred, who, after four of his brothers, reigned in ninth century Britain.
Vuyelwa Carlin was born in South Africa in 1949, brought up in Uganda, and has lived for many years now in Shropshire. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and anthologies in the UK and abroad. She has published three poetry collections to date and has won prizes in both the Cardiff and National Poetry Competitions. She is also a Hawthornden Fellow. For the past five years she as worked as a carer in an EMI (Elderly Mentally Infirm) unit.